Rose Red: Model 85001
by Sapphirefly
Summary: You can't buy a girl!  At least, not normally.  Hitomi, driven by an unknown desperation, had her memory wiped three years before and put herself up for sale. And who should be lucky enough to buy her?  AU VH.  LOVE!
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Hiya everyone! I know it's been awhile since I've written anything new. The fact is I have been really busy writing, just not stuff that can be posted here. Now I'm giving myself a little present and letting myself write Escaflowne fanfiction for awhile. This is a little different than what I normally do, but very fun. I promise. Please enjoy!

* * *

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter One**

"Hi, sorry I'm late. My last client has visited our showroom five times and he still can't make up his mind."

Van smiled and pretended that he didn't mind waiting for the client coordinator. He wasn't normally an impatient guy, but the waiting room at Sleeping Beauty Inc. creeped him out. It was decorated in pink and metallic silver, and made him feel like he was waiting to take a tour of the Barbie factory. It was too bad he couldn't afford to go to a nicer place, so what else could he do besides wait patiently?

The client coordinator made friendly chit-chat as she ushered him past the reception desk and into a private office. She wasn't a bad looking woman, except that she was probably old enough to be his mother – like all the other women he knew.

"All right," she said, seating him and taking her place on the other side of the desk. "Let's just go over your specifications, shall we?"

Van nodded and tried to make himself even just a smidgen less uncomfortable. After all, he wasn't in the absurd waiting room anymore.

The client coordinator reminded him that their consultation was completely confidential and got started. "So, let's go over each category starting at the top." She pushed a copy of his application form towards him and pointed to the first category – beauty. "I noticed you didn't mark down a preference. Let me fill you in about each style. First there's Snow White—"

"I get it," Van interrupted. "I didn't put anything down, because I don't care about what she looks like. All the girls have to be presentable in order to get a contract with you, don't they?"

"Of course," the coordinator said without skipping a beat. "I can set up your selection to be random if you'd like. Usually it's the most important feature for our clients."

"The girls aren't robots, are they? I was under the impression that they were real girls that you chose to describe with fairytale names depending on their colouring."

"Yes, that's all true. Then let's move onto the second category – Model. This refers to their best functionality."

Van's eyes ran down the list; Diva, Creative Princess, Domestic Goddess, Queen Rose, and Enchantress. His mouth practically filled with tar as he read the titles. Why couldn't he have afforded a less cheesy agency?

"I wondered if you didn't understand the titles."

"Because I chose Domestic Goddess?"

"Yeah," the coordinator stammered. "It's just no one chooses that one and the others aren't very descriptive." Then she launched into a description of each title. "The Diva is the kind of woman who looks great on any man's arm. She's always the pinnacle of fashion and style—"

Van interrupted again. "I read the small print. I don't have any need for a woman who has to be the pinnacle of fashion. I don't need an artist, or a gardener, or a five star chef. I just want someone who can be more like a personal assistant and do a little of everything."

The coordinator winked at him. "I see what you mean," she said with a little smile. "Now age? You marked under twenty-five and that seems perfect for you. You're what?"

"Twenty six."

"Gorgeous. Lastly, if there are any special skills you'd like in a model, you can choose from this list."

Van just about lost it. As if this wasn't already embarrassing enough. "Can we skip all that and just get to the price?"

"Certainly," she said, moving the paper out of his way. At that second she understood that Van wasn't going to be able to buy a nice model, but that didn't seem to bother her any and her attitude didn't change for the worse. "Our lowest price bracket is between $250,000 and $280,000. Let me just check to see how many Domestic Goddesses we have in that price range."

Van scratched his forearm. He couldn't really afford this.

"There are three, but if you're willing to go up to age 28, I can offer you two more to look at. Do you want to do that?"

"Sure."

The client coordinator got up from her chair and led Van back through the offices to a showroom that looked exactly like a warehouse, except that the metal brackets were painted pink. The floor was bare cement and the ceiling went up forever.

"The first one is part of our Thumbelina line."

"Thumbelina?"

"They're girls under five feet tall."

Van didn't know how to answer that. He didn't have a complex about his height.

The client coordinator stopped at one pink crate and pulled loose one long rectangular box. The top was glass and the girl was asleep inside. Van peered in - taking note of the strange tubes that entered the box on the other side. She was in cryostasis.

"She looks like she's twelve."

"She's actually twenty six. Some men just really like being with a woman that is definitely shorter than he is. I didn't think the Thumbelina line was for you, but I thought I'd offer anyway - just in case it was love-at-first-sight." She moved the box back into place and started them off down the aisle. "The next one is a Repunzel."

"Does that mean she has hair from here to oblivion?"

"Yes. Those girls pride themselves on their hair. The price for this one is actually below the price bracket I mentioned."

"Why?"

The woman pulled out the box and Van saw why.

"She has beautiful hair," Van remarked timidly and the coordinator slammed it shut with a bang.

"The next one is a Rose Red."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic," Van remarked.

"Well, I'm not. This one is twenty seven. She also costs less than the minimum fee."

"Why?"

"Her memory has been tampered with. She doesn't remember the last two years and she's been here for three."

"How does that work?"

The coordinator sighed. "Time stops once we put the girls in cryostasis, so they don't age. Good models are only here for a few months before they're picked up. This girl has been here three years. The price keeps dropping because it's more like she's been here for five years, since she doesn't remember two years before she got here."

"How much are you charging for her?"

She stared. "After this one, I've got two models left to show you that are in perfectly good condition. I'm sure one of them will suit you."

"How much?"

"Two hundred thousand."

Van nearly choked. "For a year?"

"No. That's how much we'd want for a lifetime investment."

Van couldn't believe his ears. No woman sold for that little. There had to be more wrong with her than memory loss.

The coordinator pulled out the box and showed him the Rose Red. Van was pleasantly surprised. She had shiny light brown hair as long as the Repunzel.

"Is her hair so long because she's been in here for three years?"

"Yes."

"Why not switch her category? She has beautiful hair. She might sell faster."

"It wouldn't make any difference. Her memory is bad."

She moved to close it, but Van held it open so he could look at her a little longer. Like the other girls, her makeup was flawless and her lips painted a perfect raspberry.

"She's lovely. What else is wrong with her?"

The coordinator rolled her eyes and sighed. "You shouldn't do this just because she's a good price. She could have been involved in anything in those two years she doesn't remember – crime, drug wars - anything."

"What's going to happen to her if she isn't bought?" Van asked.

"We don't keep anyone longer than three years and in three weeks, it'll be her anniversary. Basically, it's not cheap to keep these girls like this. She'll have to work here until she pays off the cost of keeping her asleep for all that time."

"So, she'll be doing makeup?"

"Probably not. The staff members who do make-up are highly paid professionals who are worth every cent. Let me show you the other two." She pushed the box in and took him down another stretch.

Van turned around to get the number on the Rose Red's box. It was 85001.

When they arrived at the next one, the coordinator said, "This one is a genuine Sleeping Beauty."

Van stared. "How old is she?"

"Seventeen, but gorgeous, isn't she?"

She was, but something didn't sit right. She was nine years younger than him.

"Show me the last one."

"It's a Snow White."

Van stared at the Snow White. There was nothing wrong with her. She was twenty two and pretty. The chart said she was excellent at everything she tried to do. She was two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. That woman took him to the only reasonable choice last.

"I'll let you think about it," she said, as she left him to look at the sleeping girl.

Van didn't know what to do. He couldn't actually afford the Snow White. She was perfect, but if he bought her, he wouldn't be able to even buy food without taking out loans and driving himself crazy. Besides, the two hundred and seventy five thousand only bought her for a year. After that, he wouldn't be able to buy another girl for two more years.

He closed the box and the client coordinator came rushing up.

"Can I do up the papers?"

"Sure," he said, trying to sound cool about his choice. "I'll take the Rose Red."

The woman frowned. "You shouldn't do that. There's a no-return policy attached to her."

"But I'm going to. I like lost causes." His voice sounded cool, but inside he knew he was a loser. He just couldn't stand to live alone anymore.

The look the client coordinator gave him was unusual. He couldn't tell if she was pleased with his choice or disgusted. She led him back to her office with a quick step and gave him the papers to sign.

Sleeping Beauty Inc. disclosed all of the Rose Red's personal information since he was buying a lifetime investment in her. Of course her name wasn't really Rose Red. That was just from the fairy tale. Her real name was Hitomi. Van decided to call her Hitomi-Rose. He signed for her to be delivered to his home in two weeks. That wasn't the normal chain of events after a purchase. This fairytale place liked their customers to wake their product with a kiss, but Van asked her to be delivered. He had a deadline just before her arrival date. If he used her as a carrot, he should be able to get more work done.

Just before he signed the final releases, the coordinator put her hand over the dotted line. "Are you sure you want to do this? You're a good looking man. Can't you find a date on your own? I'm sure lots of normal girls would love to be with you."

He answered by pointing to the address Hitomi was being shipped to.

The coordinator looked at it and frowned deeply. "Then I guess it can't be helped."

They both knew that no woman would go there voluntarily.

"I'm only raising these concerns because you seem like a nice guy. You have honest eyes and a gentle expression. You even seem embarrassed to be in a place like this. It's just a shame that you won't go with the Snow White."

"She'd come back screaming after the year was up. Not everyone can live happily up there. The weather's not bad. It's the isolation that gets me."

"Yeah. Well, you said you didn't want a woman who was the pinnacle of fashion. Well, just between you and me – you aren't getting one."

"I understand. It's fine."


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Notes: So I have decided to update every Thursday like I did in the old days. What can I say? That rhythm just works really well for me. As some of you know - I have no beta reader. That doesn't mean I'm asking for volunteers. It means that unless there's a truly devastating error like my famous lion, loin, lino screw up then I probably won't fix it - even if you tell me about it. I was fired by my favourite beta-reader for making too few mistakes, so you shouldn't find very many anyway._

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**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Two**

Hitomi expected to wake up with some unknown man's lips on hers. No such luck. Instead she was awoken by a pink metal handcuff coming down on her wrist. She groaned slightly. Had no one bought her? It wasn't that she wanted to be sold into basic slavery, but if she wasn't purchased, she knew that she would be chained to the wall at Sleeping Beauty Inc. sweeping floors and distributing flyers on city streets for who knew how long. When she had come in to be put into cryostasis she had leafed through the pamphlets where women came back after serving their year with diamonds and penthouses and goodies galore. It wasn't that Hitomi expected that much, but she did expect to be sold. Her disappoint made her lips an accordion of sadness.

"Oh, stop that!" the female guard programming her wrist band snapped. "At least you're not going to have my job."

Hitomi blinked. "Does that mean …?"

"Yeah, Sweet Pea. It means you were sold. Hallelujah," sang the guard sarcastically. She was obviously a left-over Sleeping Beauty who had not been bought.

"So, where's the guy?"

"He left."

"He left?" Hitomi exclaimed.

"Yeah. He didn't feel like waking you with a kiss and took off. You're to be delivered to his place."

Hitomi thought his busyness made him seem rich, but then she remembered to ask the day. If she had been there a month he would have had to spend a lot more than if she was close to her expiry date. "What day is it?" she asked rather feebly.

"March 2214."

"Crap," she mumbled. That meant that he had paid almost nothing for her. It was all her fault for getting her memory wiped. That invalidated her contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc. and instead of just selling her for one or two years, they were allowed to sell her for life. She couldn't keep her unhappiness off her face.

"Why do you look so miserable?" the guard asked, throwing Hitomi's wrist away and typing something on her own much larger wristband.

"'Cause I'm probably bound to some ridiculous moron for the rest of my life," Hitomi scowled.

The guard put her hand on her hip haughtily. "I should be so lucky. Do you think I would be acting up like this if you were being taken away by a guy twenty years older than you with a fat wallet and a tight pinch? Oh no. I'm acting like this because even though the man who bought you clearly has no money, he's young and … how should I put this? Very nice looking."

Hitomi didn't know what to say. Had her luck had turned around?

"So, what's the bad news?" the guard asked, obviously making up Hitomi's next line. "The bad news is that he's so broke that he didn't buy any clothes for you from our stores. He opted for you to wear the street clothes you came in with for the transfer. So that means no ball gown, no bathing suit, and no elegant heels. We're not going to give you a speck of make up or a drop of perfume."

"I'll live," Hitomi said, swinging her legs out of the casket-like box.

"Oh, and we'll need the nightgown back."

"Right now?" she asked, holding the tie on the back of her neck.

"No. Go to the change room. It's going to be my pleasure to escort you all the way to his home, in the north."

"The north?" Hitomi gaped, doing a double take.

"Yeah. I wasn't done telling you the bad news. That isn't a problem is it?"

Hitomi rolled her eyes. She had to go wherever the guy who bought her wanted her to go. She smiled sickly, "No. It's not a problem."

"Excellent. Get dressed, get fed, get in the truck and we should be there sometime tonight."

Hitomi pursed her lips. She wasn't sure if this was good luck or bad luck, but whatever it was she had to accept it, so she got herself to the dressing rooms.

The truck the guard put her in was not usually used for transporting girls from Sleeping Beauty Inc. It looked more like an army transport left over from the war.

The guard smiled roguishly when she showed her which truck they were taking. "Sorry, he didn't spring for one of the company vans either. You know the ones. Pink all over and full of fruit and champaign, but look the window in this bad boy rolls down. Isn't the fun almost too much?"

"Quiet," Hitomi huffed as she got in the front seat.

The guard got in next to her and they began their journey.

Hitomi sat there and played with the bracelet/handcuff around her left wrist. That was the one thing that she got to choose herself when she signed her contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc. They had big clunky ones that were thick and wide that jangled around a girl's wrist. They had ones with pretty beads hanging on tiny chains. There were some made out of rubber and some made out of leather. Hers was made of pink metallic links an inch wide. It was pretty, but something about it reminded her of chains which she also liked. She wanted to remember that she was a prisoner. That way she wouldn't have any grandiose ideas about the rest of her life.

The last thing she remembered before having her memory wiped was the sight of a man she loved. He was asking her to go into business with him. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do and asked him to leave her alone so she could think about it. When she woke up over two years had passed and there was a note from herself explaining that it didn't work out and that she had decided to sell herself to Sleeping Beauty Inc. It would have been fine, except that she was now a lifetime investment.

She shrugged her shoulders. She just had to roll with it. She had to concentrate on her duty to the man who bought her, Van Fanel, it said on the page. If she didn't he could throw her into prison or sell her on the internet. He could even rent her out if he wanted to. He owned her.

Well, it didn't matter. If her business deal with that guy hadn't worked out than there was really nothing left to live for anyway.

It was a long drive north. The flowers were blooming in her city and as they went on, Hitomi saw that fewer and fewer flowers were opening and the mountains seemed to be growing. She was being taken to the absolute middle of nowhere, but she didn't mind. Nothing could bother her. She was too unhappy about other things.

* * *

Van stood on the dirt road outside his house and felt his shoulders sag. The earth spread out in endless dry prairie before him and in ragged mountain ranges behind him. When he was in the city he had seen so many beautiful buildings. Most of them were made of reflective mirrors that contained solar cells to power the houses. The cities were built in careful designs so the sunlight was reflected between them to create the highest amount of power possible. He had thermal tubing under his front yard that had been installed seventy years before. It was slightly more advanced than the septic tank out back.

It wasn't that his house was ugly. Actually, it was the contrary. It was made of stone, had a beautifully angled roof, a delightfully inset entryway with the cutest little roof over it, and a dozen other features that made it worth looking at. From the road, it was practically a tourist attraction, but once someone got out of their vehicle and came up the walk, they saw the house for what it truly was – a magnificently designed rat hole. Not that anyone intentionally designed a home to be that, but after eighty plus years, that was what it had become. The inside was in terrible disrepair.

And he had invited a purchased woman to live here.

He sighed.

Well, he'd do what he could to make her room livable. One of the beauty spots of the house was a two storey turret off the southwest side and he planned to do the top room up to be her bedroom. Well, she would be there soon, so he went inside and up the circular stairs to the room. He had to clean, well … everything.

* * *

They wouldn't have got there before nightfall if Hitomi's guard hadn't been so serious. Neither of them had even travelled all day before. Most of the cities were closely clustered and commutes were quick when most people travelled via train. This place was in the middle of nowhere.

Hitomi's butt ached fiercely as she scooted off the seat in front of the house Mr. Van Fanel lived. She looked at the house in the yellow light that bathed the country-side before sun set and didn't know what to think. The place was ancient – picturesque – but ancient.

Then the front door swung open and a man came ambling out the front door. For a second Hitomi thought he might be drunk, but then she saw that the reason his body was so unbalanced was because he was carrying something heavy over his back. It was a huge sack with strange things poking at the plastic that looked someone's kneecap and elbow. Then the bag made a weird squishing sound as he dropped it to the ground just outside the fence. That could be guts.

The guard winced.

So did Hitomi.

"Excuse me," the guard said in a nasal tone. She had clearly stopped breathing through her nose. "Are you Mr. Van Fanel?"

"That's me," he said wiping off his oily work gloves onto his dirty jean jacket.

Hitomi peered up at him under lowered eyebrows and followed the guard's example. There was something fowl on the air. Was this what rotting flesh smelled like? And Mr. Van Fanel couldn't have looked shadier. His black hair was all over the place and his neck and face were super brown and lean like he worked with his body constantly.

She nodded her head towards him and tried to look like she wasn't remotely disgusted. Actually, she was scared stiff.

"I'm here to deliver Rose Red: model 85001. If you'll just present your key card, we can finalize the transaction."

Van took off his work gloves and fished around in the front breast pocket of his jacket before he pulled out a pink and silver card. He presented it to the guard who then grabbed Hitomi's wrist. After scanning the card with the bracelet, she let go of Hitomi and gave Van back his keycard.

"She's all yours," the guard said, stepping away from the two of them and heading back to the truck.

Van looked around at the empty ground by Hitomi's feet. "Excuse me. Didn't she come with some luggage or something?"

The guard turned to answer his question. "Sorry, if you'll look at the packing slip and the package details, you'll see that no additional clothing or accessories were purchased with this model."

Van frowned and nodded to the guard that she could leave. He stood silently next to Hitomi while the truck pulled away and skidded down the gravel road in a huff of dust.

After the air had cleared, except for the bag of rotting human entrails, Hitomi dared to say something. "You don't have any clothes for me?"

"Not a stitch," Van admitted. "I'm afraid you won't find this place very much like most of the homes Sleeping Beauty models usually get assigned to. We're fifty six kilometers from the nearest town and, trust me; it isn't much of a town."

Hitomi looked at the house without a single solar panel on it and then man without a clear square inch on him and then at the vomit-inducing bag lying a few feet away from her. It probably would have been the most depressing sight she had ever seen in her life, if she hadn't already seen the note she wrote herself that her sweetest dream had ended in misery.

"Can I see inside?" she whispered, sick to her gut as to what he would expect once they were in the house.

"Yeah. Where are my manners?" He beckoned her inside. Then he gave her a tour. "This is the kitchen and in there is the living room. There's a bathroom there and down that hallway is my bedroom and my … empty room. This door opens to a staircase that takes you upstairs to your room and another bathroom. Then if you go down that hallway it leads to the garage and out to the courtyard."

Hitomi did her best to hide the fact that she was pleased that he had given her a separate bedroom. She had been briefed about how most clients wanted to sleep with their purchase right away. Others never did. Some girls were bought with the intention of putting them to work, not using them for pleasure. She realized now that when she saw Van she worried that he was going to bring her inside and expect that part like she was a prostitute.

"Here, let me take you up to your room." He said that line while he removed his icky jacket and held onto the doorway to remove his boots. Then he bounded up the stairs like an elephant.

Hitomi quivered, and then steadied herself. She must have been ready for worse than this when she signed her contract at Sleeping Beauty Inc.

He took her up a turret room. Hitomi had to do a double take as she found herself in the middle of a sundrenched space. The west view was fantastic, but with one look, she could see that the room was crap. The blankets on the bed were frayed and the carpet was sticking together in clumps. The dresser was at least a hundred years old with ancient Spiderman stickers clinging to it in half torn off ribbons and the mirror attached to it was broken with a long crack down the middle.

"Here's the bathroom," Van said, opening a door on the side. Then he paused for effect. "Well, what do you think of it? Do you think you could live here?"

Hitomi smiled kindly. She honestly wasn't feeling that way, but she didn't think offending him would be a brilliant tactic at this particular juncture. "It's wonderful," she lied. "I should thank you … for buying me."

Van smiled and then edging his way towards the door said, "I'll let you clean up. And I'll bring you a shirt to wear to bed."

Hitomi let him close the door before going to the window once more to look at the view. It would have been perfect, if she hadn't been able to see that garbage bag. He didn't buy her just to murder her, did he?

* * *

Van came upstairs after that with a plaid shirt for her to wear and asked her if she wanted something to eat. She declined, saying she was really exhausted after the trip. Then she honestly did try to go to sleep, except that it was a complete waste of time. She couldn't stop thinking about that garbage bag and how it honestly smelled like something was rotting. By midnight, she couldn't take it anymore. How was she supposed to live in this house comfortably when she didn't even know for sure what was going on? It was probably just her imagination getting away from her and if it wasn't, than she needed to know that too.

She was wearing the plaid shirt Van had given her. Then she slipped on her pants and shoes and quietly made her way downstairs. The house was completely quiet, so she guessed Van was already asleep. She paused at the front door and wondered if it had an alarm system attached to it and if a buzzer would go off if she tried to leave the house without Van's permission. The place looked positively archaic, so she undid the deadbolt and turned the handle. No alarm sounded.

It was freezing outside as she stepped out onto the front porch. This close to the mountains the air was dead frigid this late at night. Oh well, she thought as she hugged herself, this will only take a minute.

She ran down the path to the fence where Van had dropped the bag. Luckily, it was still there. She took one sharp breath in and tugged open the bag. At first it was too dark to see and the smell was absolutely overpowering, but she couldn't leave until she knew what was in there.

Suddenly, there was a light on her hands. She whipped her head around to see Van standing in his pajamas a few feet away from her holding a flashlight. "What the Hell?" his voice echoed through the cold air. At first he sounded confused and then he was laughing heartily. "And here I thought you were running away and instead you snuck out of the house to …" Here his laughing could not be repressed. He finally got it together and was able to finish his sentence, "to go through my garbage." Then he was hooting with laughter again.

"Well," Hitomi demanded. "What is this?"

"You know – garbage!" He came over to her and shone his flashlight into the open bag. He showed her inside and she saw rotten potatoes, corn, mushy celery, and molded over oatmeal.

She plugged her house and fell backwards. "Good grief! Don't you have a garbage disposal?"

Van pulled the bag closed and tied it off. "Hard to believe, isn't it? Honestly, Baby, we're lucky to have hot and cold running water."

"Then," she said thinking, "if an alarm didn't go off in the house, how did you know I was out here?"

"That bracelet of yours is pretty fancy," he said, as he stood up straight. "Come on, though. You've got to tell me what you were expecting to find out here."

"Nothing," she said, getting up and brushing herself off.

"'Nothing'," he repeated. "Uh-huh. I'm going to believe that. Well, we'll just stay out here until you feel like spilling the beans."

Hitomi didn't move. She knew from her contract that if she tried to go into the house without his permission there were about fifteen different forms of punishment he could inflict that were totally legal. And it was freezing out. She couldn't last long.

She muttered, "I'm an idiot."

Van didn't say anything, but leaned on the fence and waited for the rest of her story to come out. He was still chuckling a little under his breath.

"I didn't think it could be rotten food. I thought that maybe it was a dead body," she admitted quietly. Then she moved to run back into the house, but Van grabbed her arm.

"You thought I was a murderer?" he asked, all the humour had run out of his voice. She got a better look at his eyes – they were nice and she had to admit this awful thing she suspected to someone who looked nice.

She nodded regretfully with her lips pursed.

His eyebrows were high as he sighed. "We're off to a terrific start."


	3. Chapter 3

**Rose Red: Model 85001 by Sapphirefly  
**

**Chapter Three**

The next morning, Hitomi was awoken by Van. He was pinching both her cheeks and stretching her mouth out to oblivion.

She knocked him off and yelled, "What are you doing?"

He laughed and jumped away from her.

"Do you have any idea how much that hurts?" she whined.

"Uh-huh, and do you have any idea how unprofessional it is of a Rose Red to accuse her buyer of being a killer?"

Hitomi lowered her head. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Apology … somewhat accepted. You know, when you were dropped off yesterday, I found myself inexplicably nervous. How was I going to treat you right? How was I going to make you happy? But ever since I found you rooting around in my trash, I'm not particularly worried about those things anymore."

Hitomi felt a shiver break out into goose bumps. Van wasn't filthy this morning. He'd had a shower and smelled like spice and prairie breezes, but that still didn't exactly remove the somewhat sketchiness of his general appearance. His chin was stubbly and the bottoms of his jeans frayed.

"As I thought about it, I realized that what we need to do now is establish trust between us. That way I'll have a happy slave and I'll be less bored."

"Uh-huh," Hitomi said slowly. "And how are we going to do that?"

"Like this," Van said, pulling a black handkerchief out of the back pocket of his pants.

Hitomi stared at him, one hundred percent puzzled. "Are you going to do a magic trick?"

Van gawked. "No."

"Then what's that for?"

"To blindfold you with, my dear."

"What?" she squeaked.

He got up and held it out to her. "We need to establish trust. Now, will you trust me enough to put on this blindfold and come on a little trip with me?"

There wasn't a bone in Hitomi's body that wanted to do this, but she really didn't have much choice. She reached out to take the handkerchief from him when he snapped it out of her grasp.

"I'll do it," he volunteered playfully.

Hitomi felt like she was going to die as the black material came over her eyes. "If we're going somewhere, shouldn't I change first?"

"Nope. Nothing to worry about. Probably no one will notice that you're wearing one of my old shirts and the same pants from yesterday. I'll help you get your shoes on when we get downstairs." With that, he took her hand in his and helped her to her feet.

Since Hitomi couldn't see a thing, she was forced to use her other senses. Van's hand was smoother than she thought it would be, and the fragrance of his cologne or deodorant was more pointed. Then she heard the sound of his voice as he counted the steps down to the main level for her so she wouldn't trip. After he got her shoes on her feet he put a coat over her shoulders.

"Are we going outside?"

"Yup. I keep my secrets outside my house. Now to evade further suspicion that I'm a freelance hit-man, I'm going to show you what I do for a living. You're not afraid of wide open spaces are you?"

"No," she replied, grasping his fingers as he hauled her over the frost covered grass.

"Are you afraid of loud noises? Do you have sensitive ears?"

"No. I used to dance right next to the speakers."

"Are you afraid of heights?"

"No." She had to fight herself from asking snottily, 'Why? Are you taking a survey?' but she managed it.

"Well, I guess nothing I'll do to you will scare you too much."

The chilly air hit her as he brought her out of the house and onto the porch. Then she felt the crunchy frost-covered grass under her shoes as he led her around the house. Then he suddenly let go of her hand.

"Hey!" she bellowed as he suddenly picked her up and set her down in a seat.

"Calm down. I'm just going to put your seat belt on. Please don't be alarmed, but this is a four point harness, so I'm not feeling around you to get my jollies, okay?"

"Okay," Hitomi agreed breathlessly as he secured her. She was totally confused. What car had a four point harness?

Then she felt the door close and within a minute Van got into the seat next to her and with him came a collection of weird clicking noises. "Now," he said once he was in the seat, "Try not to scream too much. It'll spoil my concentration and may make for a bumpy ride."

"What's going on?"

A deep hum started and then a loud chopping noise began. Hitomi was okay until she felt them lift off the ground. She bit down on her lip and put her hands between her knees. She wasn't going to act scared, but even if she said that, there was still hot sweat collecting in her blind fold.

After a couple minutes of waiting, Van said, "You can take your blindfold off."

Cautiously, Hitomi reached up and pulled it down. What she saw was simply blue sky and then as she looked down, she saw that she was sitting in the cockpit of a helicopter. The floor in front of her feet was clear and she could see the farm land shooting under them in yellow streaks.

Van was smiling under his _Top Gun_ shades. "Just to get rid of your weird ideas about me, I want to be clear. I'm a charter helicopter pilot and I need an assistant. I've tried to hire girls before, but my hanger is too far away from the town for anyone to commute. I've tried to hire girlfriends for the job and attempted to convince them to move in with me."

Hitomi swallowed the knot in her throat, but it just wouldn't go down. She was so relieved and yet terribly cross. Was everything a joke to this guy? Why couldn't he have just told her what he did and what he wanted her for last night before she jumped to any wild conclusions?

"So, do you have a girlfriend?" Hitomi asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "We're on a break. I told her I was going to go get some help if she didn't volunteer. She said that I should give up the business and move into town for her."

"Why didn't you?"

"Town? Let me tell you how it works here. Town is tiny. I have no way of making money there. She's being unreasonable and when we get to town you'll see how impossible it really is. So, short answer – no girlfriend."

Hitomi should have known she wasn't going to end up being a pampered palace brat like some of the other girls who signed up with Sleeping Beauty Inc. It wasn't like she was a runway model – and she meant that literally. Once a year they woke up the best models they had in stock for a show and in the three years Hitomi had been there, she'd never been chosen. How was she going to catch some rich man's eye when she was probably the lowest price model they had?

"Are you upset?" Van suddenly asked her. Actually, he kind of screamed it at her over the chopping sound of the rotors.

Hitomi didn't know what to say. Her brain was a jumble. Usually a model should be happy that her purchaser didn't want her for a love interest. Unless she was sadly mistaken, he probably just wanted her to sit on the other end of the transmitter as a safety precaution. Well, she guessed she was happy. It could have been worse.

Then her brain started humming, 'how could it be worse?'

He had no money.

He had a bad sense of humour.

He was making her live in the middle of nowhere.

He was going to make her work.

She couldn't figure out what that guard at Sleeping Beauty Inc. had been talking about. He wasn't hot. He was sketchy and shady and his nose had a funny twist in the middle. She looked at him again to make sure she wasn't jumping to conclusions. But looking at him was a slap in the face to her ego. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him. She bet he made most girls hyperventilate. The problem was that he wasn't the man she loved.

"Are you all right?" Van said. "You look sick. You're not going to throw up, are you?"

"No," Hitomi said quickly. "I'm fine."

"Good. We'll be touching down soon. See that puny cluster of buildings over there? That's where we're going."

Hitomi nodded.

Even though Hitomi had been fine during lift-off and flight, her stomach took a turn for the worst when the helicopter touched down. It felt like a fast moving elevator going down and she thought her stomach had somehow ended up in her knees.

She stuck out her tongue and unbuckled her harness. "What are we doing here?" Hitomi asked. There was nothing around but old grain elevators and empty-looking warehouses.

"I brought you here to go clothes shopping," he said. "But we'll have to walk a bit. This is the only place I can set down within the town boundaries."

Hitomi waited for him to come around to her side of the helicopter and open the door for her. She felt rather touched. This was nice. He brought her out to buy clothes. Now that sounded like the sort of thing a purchaser should do. Day one: shopping spree! She smiled and hopped down.

But he wasn't kidding when he said they'd have to walk a bit. They walked past silos and oddly old looking mansions.

"They used to be ranches," Van explained. "Before it became illegal to eat beef."

"They look nice."

"They were. They're like my house – old tech – except they're newer. Some of them have intercom systems installed. The best I've got is a door bell."

Hitomi didn't know what to say to him. He sounded positively archaic. Well, when she got her run of his house, they'd get an intercom system … but not before they got a garbage disposer.

Once in town, Van took her down the main street to a tiny café.

"Is this where your girlfriend works?"

He rolled his eyes. "I said she's not my girlfriend, but there's nowhere else to eat, so get in and don't say anything that might embarrass me."

"Like what?"

"Like, don't say I bought you."

Hitomi gawked and clattered her bracelet at him. "They're gonna know."

Van untied the blindfold from around Hitomi's neck and tied it around her wrist. "There. Satisfied? We're not going to spend that much time in town anyway. There'd be no end of the harassment from the locals if they knew I bought you. Come on," he said, grabbing her hand. "Let's go in."

Inside the café was a lot like the inside of a waiting room of a mechanics garage, except you couldn't pour your own coffee. At least that was what Hitomi thought as she scooted her butt onto a bar stool. The floor needed to be retiled, the wall needed to be repapered, and the girl working behind the counter needed to be made-over … badly.

"Hi Merle," Van said, talking to the girl.

"Hi," she said, pouring him a cup of coffee and staring at him and Hitomi by turns.

She set out a coffee cup for Hitomi as well, but Hitomi refused. "No. I'd like unsweetened orange juice. No coffee."

"I don't have unsweetened orange juice," Merle responded, flicking her dyed-too-many-times ponytail. "Do you see unsweetened orange juice on the menu?"

Hitomi glanced at the wall behind the girl's head. "Well, do you have some oranges? I'm sure it wouldn't be that much trouble to squeeze them."

"No. I don't have fresh squeezed orange juice on the menu either," Merle snapped.

Van was laughing between his fingers. "Just bring her the closest thing."

In a second, a short glass of orange coloured something was placed in front of Hitomi. She took a sip and gasped. "Are you trying to poison me?"

"What?" Merle burst – totally outraged.

"What's wrong with it?" Van asked levelly.

"I don't know. It tastes like she put something in it. Something toxic."

"Did you spit in it?" Van asked Merle.

"No!" the girl shouted.

"Okay." Van took the glass from in front of Hitomi and took a swig of it. "That's how it normally tastes."

Hitomi frowned in dismay. "Yuck," she said sadly.

"Merle, just bring her a glass of water," Van said reasonably.

"Like Hell I will," Merle said as she stormed into the kitchen.

Van hopped off his stool and chased after her. "Don't be like that, Honey," he said as he ducked under the counter and followed her in.

If Hitomi had any hopes that their conversation wouldn't reach her ears, she was on the losing side. She could hear everything and so could the two baseball capped farmers who sat at the other end of the bar.

"Who is she?" they heard Merle shriek.

"What do you mean, 'who is she?'" Van's voice tumbled after hers. "We already talked about this. We've been talking about for the last four months. I asked you to move out with me and you always said no. Then you broke up with me. I already warned you – repeatedly – that if you didn't do what I needed, I would find someone who would."

"That brat?"

"That brat," Van said evenly.

"She's wearing your shirt!" Merle wailed.

"So? You've worn my shirts dozens of times and what has that meant? Nothing."

"Well …" Merle stuttered.

"Well, nothing. I'd go to a different café if there was one. Now, I know you need the business, so just be a good girl and bring us both a couple pancakes. Can you do that, Honey?"

"Stop calling me Honey!"

"Get over yourself. I call everyone Honey."

"Even her?"

Van came out of the kitchen and holding the door open answered Merle. "No. I call her Rose Red."

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I think I forgot to thank people last time. I've been writing for awhile where I haven't had to thank people so I promptly got out of the habit. I know - I'm a bum. I was thinking of starting a forum for this, but I'm not sure if there's enough interest_. _Please let me know in the reviews if you're interested in one. Thanks!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Four**

"So what was that sludge your girlfriend wanted to feed me?" Hitomi asked Van as they walked from the only café in town to the only clothing store in town.

Van rolled his eyes. "She's not my girlfriend. It was nothing weird … I think. It was only juice crystals."

"Juice crystals? What are those?"

He laughed. "You've never had juice crystals? Well, I guess if you're used to unsweetened, freshly-squeezed orange juice than I guess you've never been subjected to the glories of flavoured sugar water that never goes bad – ever."

Hitomi didn't say anything else, but she felt flat. The pancakes were good, but now her stomach turned since she really had no idea at all what was in them. She hadn't grown up anywhere special and her family wasn't particularly rich, but there was an orange tree in her backyard growing up. Looking out at the prairie, she knew there would be no more orange juice out here. It was stupid, but that fact hit her harder than anything else that had happened since she had 'woke' up. There was no going back and this new world was … dismal.

Her hopes had plummeted since breakfast and now she was feeling suspicious about the prospective shopping trip. If that was what breakfast was like, could clothes shopping be much more promising?

Van suddenly stopped her in the middle of the street. "Listen," he said, turning to face her. "Before we go in, I have to tell you the conditions of your shopping spree so that you don't get too excited or disappointed."

"I doubt I'll be too excited," she said, sniffing back a little condensation in her nose. It was cold out.

Van said gruffly, "I only have two hundred dollars for you to play with and that has to buy you everything."

Hitomi thought she was going to faint. "Everything?"

"Well, this is a discount store, so you can probably spin the money out a bit," Van said positively. "You know how to do that, right?"

Hitomi scanned her memory. She knew that officially she was twenty-seven, but in her head she was still twenty-two since nothing happened to her while she was in cryostasis and she couldn't remember the two years before that. Her brain was a complete blur.

Van seemed to realize she was trying to get a grip on herself. "Are you okay? Are you having a hard time remembering how to do normal small things, like shop?"

Hitomi didn't answer him.

"You've got to be kidding me. There is a woman who doesn't know how to shop left in this world." He laughed.

"No," she said, tugging on his sleeve. "It isn't that. I was trying to remember the last thing I wanted to buy."

"Diamonds?"

"No."

"Rubies?"

"No."

"Emeralds?"

"No! Will you quit with the jewels and just let me think a minute?"

Just as Van shut up, the clouds in her head parted and she remembered what it was that she wanted. Then she described it for Van. "It was a camel hair coat with massive flare sleeves and it was double-breasted, but both buttons were only on one side of your chest. It cost a small fortune, but…"

Abruptly, Van grabbed her by the arm and hauled her bodily into the store.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Hitomi complained, just before Van spun her in front of the mannequin display set up in the entrance of the store. Hitomi couldn't believe her eyes. There it was. Her coat! There it was and not just in brown, but in red and grey and navy and yellow and white and cream and … they were on sale for thirty dollars apiece. "Wow…"

Van rested his elbow on the shoulder of one of the headless mannequins. Then he grabbed its empty sleeve and tossed it over the opposite shoulder playfully. "Except that these aren't made of camel hair. These are made of old pop bottles and every old lady in town owns at least two."

Hitomi's shoulders sagged.

"I guess that's what happens to high fashion after a few years have passed," he said quietly. "But you won't find anything that's the height of fashion here. That's why I didn't buy a diva. Just pick out what you can tolerate – even if it is eons out of style. No one will see it back at my place except me anyway. Buy what's comfortable that will last long." Then Van turned his back on her and headed off to a different department.

Hitomi stepped up to the display and touched one of the yellow coats. Van was right. But still, she'd wanted one for years before she'd lost her mind. She picked out her size in the yellow and slung it over her forearm. This was what her life was like now and she wasn't going to cry … even if she felt like it.

After that, she pecked around the store smelling weird scented body wash, testing the elasticity of hair bands, and trying on clothes so cheap her skin felt strange after she pulled them off. Eventually she made her way back to Van and showed him her purchases. He reviewed them without comment and paid for them with a credit card. She winced. That meant he didn't have the money in his normal account. He was buying on credit. She hoped it didn't max him out, but she couldn't do anything about that. She had to have clothes.

Before they went back to the helicopter, they stopped to pick up an order of food Van had waiting for him at the grocery store and picked up a parcel from the post office. It was an awful lot to carry, but Van made her carry everything she had bought while he balanced the parcel on top of the boxes that contained the food. Then he pushed the lot on a loading cart all the way to the helicopter landing.

"You can stay here while I walk the cart back," he said charitably with a chipper grin on his face.

Hitomi smiled back at him wearily and tried to look happy. He was trying to be nice to her by not making her walk back to the store with him, so she made herself comfortable and rested.

The town spread out before her through the windshield, a pitiful cluster of unpainted buildings with pathetic clumps of yellow grass between buildings. Hitomi remembered how she hadn't seen a single flower on her way to this miserable place. How was she going to survive here?

She cast her eyes downward and picked at her nails.

Time passed and somehow Van snuck up on the door and swung it open.

"Oh! You're back," Hitomi said, dropping her hands and forcing a smile on her face.

Van hopped up into his seat and suddenly he handed her a cluster of roses. They weren't real. They were made of purple ribbon and carefully clustered together with silk leaves coming through the breaks.

Hitomi was speechless.

"Sorry that they're not real. We're in the middle of nowhere and not even greenhouses ship out here without reason, so it's all I could get. Don't worry. There will be roses, just not for another couple months."

Hitomi was so choked up she couldn't say anything, but Van seemed to get it and started the chopper.

"We'll talk back at home."

* * *

Van did have something he wanted to talk to Hitomi about, but he didn't know how to broach it. To put it simply, it was bad news – for both of them. Ever since the orange juice, she had seemed down. It wasn't until he saw her shopping that he realized how messed up she was. She looked completely hopeless. Now he looked across at her in the cockpit and knew that what the coordinator said at the agency was dead on – she was damaged goods. Now he realized that he shouldn't have laughed when he caught Hitomi going through his trash. She had her memory wiped. She could have been doing anything in those two years. Anything. Even murders.

Well, the police couldn't have been looking for her, because if they had been it probably would have taken them thirty whole seconds to find her at Sleeping Beauty Inc. But that could just mean that they never found out what she had done.

A chill ran up his spine. He'd heard of models who had killed their owners before.

Argh! Now he had the willies.

He couldn't help it and glanced at Hitomi again. She did look a little deranged. He'd never seen hair that perfectly long and undamaged on a girl before. Usually they wore their hair to their shoulders like Merle – just long enough to pull into a ponytail. Hitomi's skin was practically transparent, like she'd been locked up for years. Add that to her vacant expression and he wasn't sure if she was the ghost or if she was the one being haunted.

Van pulled his gaze away from her and looked at the horizon. _I am not sleeping with her. I am not sleeping with her. There is nothing to worry about._ He chanted it over and over again in his head. He wasn't taking advantage of her or raping her or whatever those nasty guys had been doing to the models that went nuts. Nothing was going to happen. She slept on a completely different floor. He had to calm down.

Now.

It wasn't really working. He kept on chanting.

Back at the house, Van and Hitomi unloaded the chopper and put their food away. It was such normal work that Van shook off his spectral suspicions of her and got on with it.

After that, Van got in his truck and took the helicopter back into the hanger. As he crossed the yard coming back towards the house, he saw Hitomi up in her tower putting her things away. That was as good a place to break the bad news as any, so he went up to see her.

He tapped on the door.

"Come in," she said and he came in.

She was standing by the door, putting her things in the closet. That was how the room looked. It was an irregular shape even though the tower was a perfect circle, because a little space was shaved off one side for the stairs up, the closet, and the bathroom. That put three identical white doors in a row. He hoped she was never too drowsy to forget which one was the bathroom in the middle of the night.

"Everything fit okay?" Van asked cautiously, as he moved over to the other side of the room and perched himself on the window frame.

"Yeah," Hitomi nodded, taking another hanger out and putting a tank top that cost only a dollar on it.

Van sighed. He knew it cost only a dollar. She'd bought six of them.

Well, he couldn't procrastinate any longer. "I got a transmission from the Royal Bank of Freud. Does that name ring any bells with you?"

He watched Hitomi gulp down uncomfortably. "Yeah, that was where my debt was. Don't tell me the money that Sleeping Beauty Inc. transferred to my account wasn't enough to cover my debt."

Van nodded gravely.

Hitomi's face went from white to red and she stormed, "I was repeatedly assured that the payment would be enough unless no one bought me. Wasn't that true?"

"They said the principle was paid, but interest rates went up while you were in cryostasis and now they want another twenty-thousand dollars."

Hitomi stared at him.

He clenched his teeth together and gave her a half-hearted smile. "They say I'm on the hook for it."

Hitomi's shoulders sagged. "Sorry about that."

"Just let me ask one thing," Van said patiently. "Do you have any idea what you spent that money on?"

She shook her head weakly. "No. I was broke before my memory wipe, but I wasn't in debt. Back then, no one would have given me credit."

Van sat, pondering that. "Well, I'll ask RBF to send me your financial records for the past ten years and we'll see if we can figure it out. In the meantime, we need to figure out a way for us to earn twenty-thousand dollars by New Year's Day."

Hitomi shook her head sadly. "So you don't have the money?"

"Well, I have money and I don't. Right at this moment – I don't have twenty-thousand dollars. I spent nearly all my available cash getting you."

Hitomi chuckled darkly. "Was I worth it?"

"Putting the topic of money aside, I can tell that something's bothering you," he said quickly. "And I can tell you to put it away and to put it away and to put it away, but it won't get put away, will it? You obviously sold yourself to start a new life because something was bothering you back then, too. I bought you for the same reason. I want to start something new. And I want to help you adjust to this new life, so let's think of some things to help you."

Hitomi thought for a second then stuttered, "I can't think of anything that doesn't cost money."

Van hesitated too. "Well, I plan to spend a little money on my new endeavor. I suppose I can do the same for you."

Hitomi shook her head, picked up a pair of scissors and went into the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror snatched a clump of her hair and put the scissors to the roots.

"No!" Van screeched, diving at her. He grabbed the scissors in one hand and in so doing, knocked her completely off balance. Reflexively, he grabbed her waist with his other hand and held her up.

Her eyes were wide as she stared up at him.

He breathed heavy and brought her back up to a standing position without letting the moment become any more awkward. "Whew! Don't cut your hair for nothing."

Hitomi looked confused and Van felt her eyes on him as he put the scissors away. "But Van! You didn't buy me to be your lover. Why should it matter to you what I do with my hair?"

"But Rose Red," he said, mimicking her tone of voice. "I don't care if you want to cut it. I just think that if you're going to do it anyway, then let's cut it the profitable way."

"'The profitable way'?" Hitomi repeated.

"Yeah. I know someone who can pixie you right up."

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time. Honestly, I've never seen such a poor hit to review ratio before. Although it does make the people who actually review look like angels. **waves to all the angels - I can hardly see you you're so high** Anyway, I wanted to start a forum today, because there are a few more author's notes than usual today, but I'm not quite convinced that it won't be a lonely place, so I'll write my notes in here and see if anyone has any comments on them. Here we go:_

_Hitomi is not getting a haircut because she has short hair in the anime. I could just as easily say that she's like manga Hitomi who has a ponytail. That's one of the things I love about Escaflowne. There's the movie, the anime, and I think there might even be two mangas. I feel like I can do whatever I want and then trump up an excuse and hahaha - it'll be valid. Anyway, all you Van fans out there, I'm playing him a little different. He's kinda funny, huh? Whatcha all think?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Five**

Van sat in a strangely lumpy chair in town. If he had thought for one second that Hitomi would have been willing to chop off her glorious locks, he wouldn't have left the city without having it done professionally, but now that they were out in the sticks he had no choice. Now he sat in the back of the only salon in town, which was more like a men's room at a truck stop than a beauty parlor, letting one of his insane friends cut her hair.

Actually, it was Merle's step-mother, Celena. She was only six years older than Van. In many ways she was more Van's contemporary than Merle who had just turned nineteen. Truth be told, Van would have rather dated Celena than Merle, but there weren't that many women in town to choose from and Celena was unfortunately and irrevocably taken.

She was the one who told Van to go buy a girl. He hadn't known that Celena was a purchased woman until one night when she was closing the café and he was staying late because he just couldn't bear to go home to … nothing.

"Listen, Van," she said pushing her near-white hair out of her eyes and speaking levelly. "Give up on Merle. She likes you to pieces, but if you make her go out there she'll hate you forever. She's never lived anywhere but here and if she puts herself in your back pocket without ever experiencing anything for herself – there's going to be a problem. And it will be your problem."

Van twitched and refused to comment.

Then she wiped her soapy hands off on a tea towel and sat down across from him in the booth. "Unless I'm reading you wrong, you don't even like Merle that much. It's just that she's the only one around."

Van peered up at her. "There is someone around I like even better."

"It's no good, Van," Celena said. She smiled wanly and put her arm in front of him on the table. "Do you see this?"

Van saw the sparkling wedding ring on her finger and asked, "Is that really going to last forever?"

She saw his eyes on her wedding band and shook her head. "You're looking at the wrong piece of jewelry. The wedding ring doesn't mean much compared to this," she said, flicking the bangle on her wrist. "Divorces are easy to get. Those kinds of contracts are easy to make and break. This isn't."

"What are you talking about?"

"Dilandau bought me."

"Really?" Van exclaimed. He knew that purchased women were common among celebrities and playboys, but here in his little town? No way!

But Celena had reassured him that it was true.

"Does Merle know?"

"Of course not! Dil told her that I was a live-in nurse."

Van remembered the story. It was easy to believe since Dilandau had been ill for so long. It seemed only natural when he brought someone to town to take care of him. Van had tried to date her back then, but she had told him immediately that she and Dilandau planned to get married. That way she could help raise Merle and look after the diner.

Van sighed in relief. He was strangely comforted when he found out that it was all a lie. So, nothing was wrong with him. Celena didn't reject him because Dilandau was better for her. It was because she was a purchased woman and she did whatever she was told.

"Will you get anything from him when he dies?" Van asked callously. He'd never liked Dilandau.

Celena wiped her nose and said, "No, and they have to do a number of tests after he dies to make sure that I didn't hasten it along. Besides I have nothing to gain. He's already signed the papers. When he dies I'll go back to Sleeping Beauty Inc., I'll be sold again and the proceeds will go to Merle. That's what he decided."

"Bastard!" Van swore crossly. "Couldn't he have given you your freedom?"

Celena sighed. Her blue eyes always looked a little sorrowful and tired, but her eyes flicked up and her lips curved into a smile. "You shouldn't feel sorry for me. I got myself into this mess and you know what? Dilandau is a lot nicer than my last purchaser. Sure, he's crazy and sure, he works me hard, but he's never once hit me. I'm fine with him. I hope he lives forever."

Van rubbed his eyes. Hearing all this was a little overwhelming for him. "All right, so you're fine. What should we do about my problem?"

"You need a girl to live out at your place?"

"Well, I'd rather have a girl than a guy."

"Because you'd rather have someone to cook for you and clean for you and basically be your slave?" Celena said casually.

"You make me sound like a pig, Celena, but I'm really not. I'm just lonely."

She crossed her arms, taking the proof she was purchased with her. "Whatever you want her for, I think you should go to the city and buy a girl rather than mess around with Merle."

Van kicked the table. "Leave that alone. Merle already turned me down, and I already asked her more times than I wanted to, so it's not like I am going to haul her off by her hair."

"So, what about buying a girl? Haven't you got any money?"

"I never thought about it before. How much would I need?"

"I don't know. All I'm saying is that you should look into it."

Van's curiousity was ignited. "So, how did Dilandau choose you?"

Celena pulled her hair off her sticky forehead and leaned her back against the wall inside the booth. "He went in and asked them to sell him the cheapest one they had in the Domestic Goddess category. That was me."

Van was astounded. Celena was amazing. She was patient and beautiful and somewhat capable and basically as good as anything he could imagine. And she was the cheapest one they had!

It was then that he made up his mind to give it a try.

Now Van sat in a lumpy chair in Celena's makeshift hair salon that was actually an unusable extra bathroom, he realized that he recognized Hitomi's brokenness much faster than he recognized Celena's. He hadn't seen it before, but Celena was messed up too. That was why she tolerated Dilandau, who was clearly a rotten husband to her and a pitiful father to Merle. And now as he watched Celena's scissors snap shut in somewhat clumsy irregular motions, he came to understand something else. Celena wasn't getting better.

Van grimaced. Then he turned his head away.

He'd already thought about it a hundred times. He didn't have to buy Hitomi. He could have just waited for Dilandau to kick the bucket, and then he could go to Sleeping Beauty Inc. and buy her for himself.

It didn't work.

The plan was flawed. Who knew how long Dilandau would take to die. He wasn't drinking himself to death in a huge hurry and his disease didn't seem to be taking a turn for the worst. As a matter of fact, he was getting steadily better since Celena came into his life. Merle told him that Celena was slowly petering down the drunk's alcohol intake. Well, goody for her, the maniac would probably never die.

And as for regretting buying Hitomi, Van hadn't decided on that path yet. If he was desperate, he could always sell her again. That was what Van thought before he bought her. Now he didn't think he would have the heart to do that. If he ever decided to let her go – he had to free her. He couldn't sell her. She might end up the hands of the sort of guy who had beaten Celena and Van didn't want that.

Besides, something was wrong with her.

She sat in the broken hairdresser's chair and looked at herself in the faded mirror. She looked like a cancer victim. Celena could give them a lot more money if she didn't spare Hitomi and took off all her hair at the roots. But even though her appearance had been attacked heavily and she looked like a fairy doll before the doll maker put the hair on – she didn't seem to feel anything. She didn't cry. She didn't wince with each snip the scissors made. She didn't seem to feel anything.

She got out of the chair and Van awkwardly handed her one of his toques. "You can wear this," he said.

Hitomi reached out to take it from him, but her hand slipped and the hat fell on the floor.

Van stooped to pick it up. Then he put it directly on her head. "I don't want you to be cold on the way back home." Then he turned to the hairdresser. "Thanks, Celena."

She nodded and said, "I think I'll be able to get close to three thousand dollars for it the next time I go to the city."

"When is that?"

"Sometime next week."

"Transfer me the money when you get it."

"Will do," she said. Then she turned away from them and started wrapping the hair.

Van put his arm around Hitomi's shoulders and led her out of Dilandau's back door. She shivered slightly as they came into the yard where tiny stars of snowflakes were coming down and settling on the heaps of abandoned appliances that Dilandau stacked out there. He suddenly grabbed one of her hands and shoved it in his coat pocket.

"Didn't you buy gloves?" he asked, making an effort to keep the temper out of his voice.

Hitomi breathed hard in the cold air. "Sorry. I was dumb. I thought Spring was here."

"Well, the truck will warm up fast," he said, pushing the gate open for her and giving her shoulders an extra squeeze.

* * *

Back at Van's place, Hitomi stood outside. Van had parked the truck in his hanger and Hitomi had decided to get a better look at Van's land. There was more there than just a house and she was curious to see what he had. When she told Van what she wanted to do, he laughed at her and gave her his scarf to tie around her neck. Then he went into the house to let her wander.

So she wandered.

Van's house was an L shape with abnormally large serifs. The long part of the L was the front of the house and the short part of the L was the back. The long part comprised the kitchen, dining room, great room, main bathroom, and a tiny wing off one side that had once been a conservatory which made up one of the sets of serifs. The back of the house was Van's bedroom and then his room that had nothing in it. Then he had a bathroom that for some strange reason had huge windows in it that matched the ones in the conservatory at the other end of the house. Hitomi stared at it. Non-hazy windows in the bathroom? That seemed like a serious breech in protocol. Anyone at all could see inside, but then again – this was the middle of nowhere. There was no one to see anything.

Hitomi's tower came up in the corner of the L. The staircase to it was right beside the door that led into what Van called the courtyard. Hitomi supposed that it had been a beautiful and well cared for garden, but now it was in shambles. Well, at least it didn't have old washers and dryers in it.

Hitomi sighed. She was starting to be impressed by the strangest things.

Hitomi walked up to the gazebo that stood by itself in the corner opposite her tower. It was in pitiful disrepair as well, but it was pretty. That could be a good project for her, she thought as she circled it. She could fix it. But how? She was pretty sure the only reason she got assigned the category of Domestic Goddess was … Here Hitomi's mind hit a blank.

Why was she in the Domestic Goddess category?

She scraped the sides of her head and put her fingers up Van's toque in a vain effort to remember. Her mind was a blank. She didn't remember signing the papers at Sleeping Beauty Inc.

Giving up remembering, she decided to think about it in a more deductive way. She wasn't a chef, so Enchantress was out. She wasn't a gardener so the Queen Rose category was out. She wasn't a fashion expert so Diva was out. She guessed that Domestic Goddess was their catch-all for girls with no skills.

Well, even if she had no skills, there was nothing she had not been willing to do for that man back then. It was a shock for her that she had decided not to keep the memory. Didn't she love him more than anything?

Hitomi felt her scalp again.

He liked long hair. She'd obviously grown it out for him. But for her, the length had seemed strange when she woke up. It made her feel like she was borrowing someone else's skin, borrowing someone else's hair, borrowing someone else's life. Granted, her hair was longer than now five years ago, but chopping it all off made the slate feel clean. New clothes and a new haircut – things were starting to come together.

And Van wasn't such a bad guy. She could see him now holding a mug and standing in the front room watching her. He was probably still laughing at her. Well, what she was doing wasn't funny.

She turned her back on him and came face to face with a gigantic cow. Her eyes went wide. It was humongous. Hitomi had never seen such a big animal that wasn't caged before. Its eyes were huge and so close she could see the veins in them. What should she do? If she ran away, wouldn't it chase her? Hitomi stood perfectly still. That was what you were supposed to do when a wild animal came up to you, right? She didn't move a muscle, but flaming hot panic that began in her neck was racing through her whole body.

The cow took a step towards her.

She was paralyzed. Biting her lip, she tried not to scream. The cow wasn't moving. It was just standing there watching her.

Minutes passed.

It seemed to be sizing her up, but what for? Cows were herbivores. Well, maybe it thought her yellow coat looked appetizing. Hitomi reached down and pulled up a pathetic little clump of dead grass. The stalks weren't very long and Hitomi had to reach far to get it close to the animal's mouth. Hitomi's heart pounded. Then the cow chomped down the grass and almost chomped down Hitomi's hand with it. She pulled her hand away, taking a puddle of cow slobber with it.

Then Van came striding up with his hands in his pockets. Then he jumped and the cow seemed so deathly afraid of him that it took off at a dead run.

Hitomi's shoulders fell.

Van chuckled deeply. "You…" he sputtered.

"Me? Why was it scared of you and not me?" Hitomi demanded.

Van caught his breath, but he was still unmistakably merry. "You stood still. All you needed to do was jump once on the spot and it probably would have taken off."

"How was I supposed to know that?"

"You were so cute trying to feed it." Van wiped away an imaginary tear. Then he pulled himself together and suddenly brought the indigent Hitomi into a hug. "You know what I've decided? This place is going to be good for you. You'll see."

Hitomi put her arms around him too. He wasn't the one she had always wanted, but under the circumstances, he would do just fine.

"Let's go in the house. I'm going to tell you what I bought you for."

"Huh?"

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter. As an fanfic author, that's the only payment I get. Plus, I love reviews. I think that even if I were to become the kind of author who gets paid, I'd probably miss the fan mail. Anyhoo - REVIEW. Love!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Rose Red: Model 85001 by Sapphirefly  
**

**Chapter Six**

"All right," Van said, putting Hitomi on the couch in the living room. "Here's the deal."

Hitomi sat poised and ready. If he could be straight with her during this conversation, then all her questions about what her life would be like with him would be answered.

"So, as you know, I run a charter helicopter service and I make good enough money doing it that it seems like a pretty dumb idea to switch it up with another career. Now the thing is, and this has been happening for years, I get customers up here to get a view of the mountains and ice fields from overhead. They want coffee, they want sandwiches, they want donuts, and sometimes they even want a place to stay overnight. You should see how disappointed these people are when the only place I can recommend to them is the café I took you to in town. The other thing is that my house, though a run-down heap, is actually gorgeous. Sometimes people who are driving by stop to take pictures and occasionally I've had people come up to the front door and ask for a tour. But usually, they come half-way up the walk and then turn away because they realize that this place is only pretty from a distance." Van took a breath and looked Hitomi straight in the face. "I bought you to help me turn this place into a tourist spot."

Hitomi gaped. Her eyes unconsciously flipped to a spot on the wall where the wallpaper was torn off and she could see the drywall.

"I know what you're thinking," Van said briskly. "It'll take forever and it'll cost a fortune, but I'm not kidding how much money this could make. If we work hard at this, we'll have enough to pay your debt by the end of the year, which is good, because your bank is demanding payment by then. Remember?"

Hitomi winced and swallowed a hard lump in her throat. She didn't really have a choice. "Where do we start?"

"Well, I want to start with this room. I think we should scrap the whole living room concept and go for something a little closer to a dining room in a restaurant. I think we should get a sofa to go in front of the fireplace. Then we should put one arm chair in that corner and then one in the adjacent corner and then a table in between them. Then another table and chair set that could look into the conservatory. Then I want to put a window seat in that bay window."

Hitomi could see what he was talking about. It could be a very charming room if they changed some things. Well, most things.

"With some work, this place could be the pretty little romantic spot that becomes a couple's favourite place to run away to for the weekend," Van continued.

Hitomi nodded. "Sounds good!"

Van smiled. "Great! Let's start by going through the furniture and deciding what stays and what goes."

* * *

**The Van and Hitomi's Renovation Project**

**Take One**

"How can this thing be so heavy?" Hitomi gasped, trying to lift the massive tube that used to be the carpet in the living room. It felt like her shoulders were going to snap off.

"Normally, I'd say we should cut it up into manageable pieces and carry those, but I think it should go to a better place. Don't you?"

"Doesn't 'a better place' normally mean the garbage?" Her fingers were slipping around the carpet.

"Don't let it drop! Come on, Hitomi! Toughen up! I really want it in my workshop and we're going to use the workshop a lot during the renos. You'll be happy when it's there and you can kneel on carpet instead of cement."

Hitomi groaned.

Van let his side of the roll droop. "Okay. I'll tell you what. Once we get this out there, you can start ripping down the wallpaper in the living room."

"What?" Hitomi asked. She was a little breathless.

Van started tracing a little pattern on the backside of the carpet. "Well, I saw you eying it and I saw your lip move in kind of a snarl. You think the paper is really ugly, don't you?"

Hitomi was horrified. How could he have read her expression so easily?

"You want to pull it down, don't you?"

Hitomi knew this was bait, but what about it? He owned her. She had to do what he said no matter what, and if he wanted her to let her rip down that hideous garbage? Well, then, who was she to argue with him? She heaved up the carpet and tried again with her second wind.

* * *

**Take Two**

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

"Van!" Hitomi screamed, running past the kitchen and into the corner where the staircase to her tower was.

There he was with a sledge hammer pounding on the wall with complete abandon. He had white dust on his cheeks, and his shoulders of his navy shirt were turning baby blue.

"What are you doing?" Hitomi gasped in surprise.

Van stopped beating the wall and turned around to greet her. "Hi! Isn't this a great idea? We don't need this whole casing to the stairwell. Don't you think it hides the beauty of the staircase? I've always thought it needed to go and now is the perfect time to get rid of it."

"But I thought we were starting with the living room/dining room area? We haven't even finished taking out _all_ of the carpet yet."

"True, but we should start with what inspires us, right? Like I let you work on the wallpaper. And right now, I wanna get rid of this wall." He hit it again and a sheet of drywall came loose.

Hitomi stared at the ceiling doubtfully. "Are you planning on taking out the studs and everything?"

"Probably. Why?"

"Aren't you worried there might be a load-bearer in there? What if you bring down the whole tower?"

Van turned to her and smirked. "I'm not going to take down the load-bearer. Honestly!" He whacked one of the studs and something above them went CREAK!

Hitomi shuddered.

"Well," Van said hesitantly. "Maybe I'll redo the drywall around that one and make a pillar."

"Good," Hitomi said, inching away. "I'll still be able to sleep up there tonight, right?"

* * *

**Take Six**

"This stuff smells awful!" Hitomi whined through her mask.

Van pulled his own mask down. "You said you thought these arm chairs were worth saving if only there were refinished. Well, I told you how to refinish them and the first thing we need to do is get this groadalated paint off."

"But the stripper doesn't even take all the paint off it because there's like ten coats of paint on it. How many frick'n times was this piece of crap painted? They painted it white, orange, brown, and we haven't even found the wood yet. For all we know this chair could be made out of plastic."

"Don't be silly," Van said, completely undaunted. "It's too heavy to be made of plastic."

"Then metal, and then they'll be no pretty wood to uncover. This was a dumb idea."

"No," Van said cheerfully. "It was a good idea, but if you're tired of doing this I could finish it up for today and you could go work in the conservatory."

Hitomi shivered, tightened her mask and got back to work scraping the brown paint off the back of the chair she was working on. She'd rather do this then go into the conservatory. It was freezing in there. Van kept reassuring her that they did have a few warm months in the middle of nowhere and that the conservatory was a nice enough place to sit in for at least half of the year. Hitomi remained unconvinced. But it wasn't just the temperature that sent her scrambling. There were also loads of smelly rotten plants in there that needed to be dug out, so the choice wasn't complex.

Hitomi smiled though. Van let her work on anything she wanted to. It was just as well. There was no T.V., or regular web access, or anything else to do anyway.

* * *

**Take Eleven**

"Purple," Hitomi said, holding a colour wheel up to the living room wall.

"Purple? Really?" Van asked doubtfully. "I know I said that I wanted the place to be romantic, but purple? I don't know if I can live in a house with purple walls. It's too…"

"Girly," Hitomi supplied, choosing another colour. "What about cranberry, then? But that's not very summery and you really wanted this place to be summer spot, right?"

"White?" Van asked.

"Too boring," Hitomi hummed.

"Should we paper it again?"

"Only if you take my advice and do lavender brocade."

Van picked up one of the catalogues Hitomi had been leafing through earlier. He stopped at a page. "Is this the one you were talking about?"

"No." She flipped to another page and pointed. "That one."

"Huh? Well, I like the pattern. I think that wallpaper is a pretty simple way to make this place look done up, but why – for the love of all that's holy – does it have to be purple?"

Hitomi snapped her colour wheel shut and joined him by the catalogue. "Well, if you don't like purple, what do you recommend?"

"Green." Van chose a forest green. "What do you think?"

"I hate it."

"What about one of the black and white ones then?"

"Hmm. They're prettier," Hitomi conceded. "But I already went through the effort of scraping and sanding and staining and picking out new fabric for those miserable crap chairs and if I could have just slapped another coat of white paint on them instead, then—"

"AAA!" Van pretend-screamed. "I get it! Stop. Not white, but not purple."

"Rich colours. Rich!" Hitomi emphasized.

"Red?"

"Argh! Too slutty!"

Van turned the page and both of them stared.

"Light green?"

"This green?"

They agreed in a second.

* * *

**Take Fourteen**

"Hitomi!" Van yelled. He had combed the house three times and he couldn't find her anywhere. He scowled. He knew she was hiding from him. Ever since he showed her his cordless power sander with all the attachments, he hadn't been able to get it away from her. She had been on the hugest sanding binge. She had already sanded four picture frames, two side tables, and believe-it-or-not, all the kitchen cabinets. Well, he'd had it! He could never find it when he wanted it and whenever he did find it, it was only because he followed the soft humming the gadget made.

So, now he stopped and listened for it. He was positive he could hear something. It was up the tower. Slowly, he mounted the steps and went up. Hitomi's door was open, so he stuck his head around the corner. He expected to find her doing some other ludicrous project, but instead the room was empty. The sound was coming from the bathroom.

Van turned to the bathroom and grimaced. He didn't want to approach Hitomi in there. Besides, he never came up here. That was why she left her door open and apparently why she left her bathroom door open too, because it was open a crack.

Then the humming stopped and Van heard Hitomi singing, "And the highway man came riding up to the old inn door."

Van was about to turn away, thinking he had imagined wrongly that she was bathing or something. After all, who would be stupid enough to leave the bathroom door open if they were naked? She was probably in there doing some reno project that he hadn't given her permission to do.

Well, he was going to confront her about it!

He swung open the door and there was Hitomi, standing there in a towel with one foot up on the sink.

Van was gob smacked. Embarrassed to his ears, he was about to turn away, but Hitomi seemed quite collected and asked, "What do you need?"

"Sorry," Van said, still quite red. "I was looking for my … and I heard a noise up here so I thought that you'd squirrelled away my…"

Hitomi turned on her electric razor.

Van felt sick. That was the noise he had heard. He had caught her shaving her legs.

"Yeah, sorry. I'll go now," he said, pulling the door shut when suddenly, he saw his yellow sander on the floor of the bathroom. To be exact, it wasn't on the floor. It was sitting neatly on a folded towel on the floor with a string tied to the handle of the sander and the other end tied to the towel rack. Van stooped to pick it up. "What is this?" he asked, his voice accusing.

"Your sander?" Hitomi supplied, biting her lip.

"Clearly. I mean, why is it tied to the towel rack? It isn't a dog."

"Well, I thought it might get away."

"U-huh."

* * *

**Intermission**

"Has that money from Celena come in yet?" Hitomi asked, knocking on the door to Van's bedroom.

He came out and shut the door behind him. "Yep. She finally transferred it."

"What took her so long? Didn't she know that we spent all our money on stuff for the house and we've been eating cardboard boxes?"

Van rolled up a piece of paper he was holding and whacked Hitomi in the forehead with it.

"Hey!"

"Don't talk about Celena like that. I'm sure it just took her awhile to arrange things with her buyer, or maybe she needed to find a new buyer. I'm sure it was something like that."

Hitomi rolled her eyes. Van's outburst was only the tip of the Celena ice burg. When the power tools were silent he spoke of her endlessly during their work. "You know what's great about Celena…", "Celena makes the best…", or Hitomi's favourite, "Let's call Celena. I'll bet she knows how we can solve this." Hitomi knew Van didn't mean to be tiresome. Actually, he wanted to keep his affection for Celena quiet, but he failed. Part of it was that Van wasn't used to having his every word listened to. He was too used to being alone all the time. The other thing was that having Merle as his in-town love interest was clearly part of his public image, but he never talked about her. He didn't complain about the way Merle got under his skin or act like he missed her. It was obvious to Hitomi that even though Van didn't want to go public with his feelings – Celena was the one in his heart.

Hitomi got that easily enough. Celena was willowy and very very very blonde. Plus, she had this slightly lost look to her that just screamed to any nearby man that she needed protection. It was very natural for Van to respond to her that way.

So how did Van respond to her, Hitomi?

Hitomi rolled one shoulder. She was probably sitting somewhere between subordinate and friend in Van's books. And she was fine with that … for now. She knew the exact moment she wouldn't be fine with it anymore. That would be the moment when he found someone he could really love. A man could own a woman and marry a different woman at the same time.

Well, that time might never come. After all, Celena was owned by Dilandau as well as being married to him. Van didn't have a hope with her.

* * *

**Take Twenty-one**

Van came into the kitchen. "What's that wretched smell?"

Hitomi was jabbing at the sink with a skewering stick and clearly losing her mind to panic. "How am I supposed to know? I didn't do anything. It backed up on its own."

"What are you doing to it?" Van said, looking over her shoulder.

"Well, what else am I supposed to do? The guck won't stop coming out."

"You could try a plunger."

"A what?" Hitomi gasped. The water level in the sink was rising.

"Step aside, little girl. I've got this."

Hitomi jumped back and Van jammed the plunger into the sink, literally saving Hitomi's day. She came up behind him and looked sideways into the sink. It was bubbling and the water was draining.

"Thanks," Hitomi said, grateful he had known what to do.

"What have you been running down the sink anyway?" he asked, but the look on his face was good-natured.

Hitomi smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. "Who are you blaming for what? I just got here. The question should be: what have you been running down the sink?"

"Whatever. Use this the next time it happens," Van said, turning away from her to rinse off the plunger.

It wasn't very much like a knight wiping the blood off his sword, but Hitomi was just as grateful.

* * *

**Take Twenty-three**

"We should get the wrought iron patio set," Hitomi argued.

"But the table is so small," Van argued back.

"Yes, but we could take it out to the gazebo in the summer," Hitomi whispered in his ear.

Van perked up. "Huh," he said, squashing his shivering ear into his shoulder. "I hadn't thought too much about the gazebo. If we're going to do that we should really make up the garden better. How's your green thumb?"

"I don't have three thumbs," Hitomi said darkly.

"Never gardened before?"

"Well, I never hung wallpaper before and I did it. I never refinished furniture before and I did it. That isn't what bothers me. I honestly wouldn't mind doing it, if only it weren't so cold outside. I'm not used to it."

Van seemed to rethink his suggestion. "Actually, forget it. I'll do the yard. I want you to be in charge of the kitchen when we have guests. We'll start by offering muffins and sandwiches and stuff like that. So, you take care of that and I'll take care of the yard."

Hitomi paused. "Does that mean that we can have the iron set?" she asked quietly, pointing to the picture on the screen.

"Sure, Hitomi-Rose. Order it!"

* * *

**Take Twenty-nine**

"This one, and this one, and this one, and two of these."

Van followed Hitomi around the superstore with a shopping cart. This was the first time he had brought her to the city since he had purchased her. It was just a day trip to buy kitchen wares, but she was very excited and having a bit of a heyday.

"Wait. Wait. Wait. What's that?" Van asked, halting her one-person-party.

"Which one?"

"That?" he said lifting out a yellow floppy rubbery thing.

"A muffin tin."

"A muffin tin? How so? It looks like a piece of tent tarp that melted in the sun.

"You're so negative!" Hitomi exclaimed. "Look, you take this little tool and you can reshape the cup. So, you can make muffins in the shape of hearts or stars or suns."

"How about circles?" Van asked dryly.

"It does that too! Isn't it amazing?"

Van yawned. He thought it was too cute that she was so excited over heart shaped muffins, but he's keep that to himself. He'd never seen a woman so easily pleased. If someone showed that contraption to Merle, she would have snorted her coffee up her nose and grouched saying that it was a waste of time. Celena would have smiled patiently and moved on. But Hitomi was so happy and the tin didn't cost very much. Van hoped it worked well for her.

She tossed something that looked like a syringe in the cart and Van scooped it out to see what it was. Another doohickey for baking – for cookies this time.

Van looked into the cart. Everything, from the plates to the mixers was yellow. It rang a bell with him. Something else in their house was yellow.

"Hitomi," Van said, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her up to his chest so she had to look straight into his eyes. "I just noticed something about your shopping habits and I wanted to ask you a question."

"Shoot," Hitomi said, glancing at his hard curled around her upper-arm.

"Did you buy all your kitchen-wares to look exactly like the power sander?"

Hitomi started to giggle. Then she put a hand to her forehead. "Yeah, I guess I did."

* * *

**Take Thirty-six**

"So, Van," Hitomi said, stretching her legs out over one of his as they sat on the window seat in the living room he had just finished. "Now that we've finished the living room and the kitchen, I was thinking about what you said about guests staying over. What room were you planning on renovating for them?"

"I wasn't planning on renovating anything," Van said, casually resting his hand on her socked foot. "I've been saving the carpet in the nothing room forever. It just needs to be aired out. I suppose that if you desperately want to do something in there, you could take the leftover wallpaper that we used in here and do one of the walls."

"But Van, I've stuck my head in there. Isn't that the most boring room in the house? If you really want this to be a memorable spot, you should redo the tower. If we let our guests stay up there, they will never want to leave."

Van rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I hear what you're saying and don't think that I don't agree with you, but we can't do it now. We're out of money. As it stands, my first trip of the season is next week. It's a couple who told me I should turn this place into a resort that serves coffee and snacks, so I know they'll be here for that. After that, I've got enough ice field tours booked to keep the furnace running during the winter, but we need to earn extra money if we're going to pay off your debt by the end of the year. So, stop thinking about renovations. I know it's liberating to make this old Hell-hole look like new again, but if we don't pay that bill, the only renovation you'll be doing is installing wheelchair ramps."

Hitomi frowned uncomfortably. She didn't know if he was joking about the debt collectors breaking his knees or not.

"I got your bank statement," Van said suddenly. "Do you want to look at it?"

"Wow," Hitomi said cynically. "They sure took their sweet time getting it to us."

"Don't fret it," Van said, taking his phone out of his pocket and pulling up the statement. "It took them awhile to find everything. Some of the records were very old. Apparently, they've already changed systems twice since then."

Hitomi took the phone away from him and scanned through the dates until she found what she was looking for. Then she said, "Okay, this is the day before I lost my memory."

Van peeked over her shoulder and commented, "And the next day someone deposited one-point-three million dollars into your account? Do you know what that was for? Do you mind me asking?"

"No. Besides, it shouldn't bother you. I sold myself. The original contract that I examined the last day I remember was for nine months."

Van whistled. "That's a lot of money for nine months."

Hitomi smiled and looked distant. "You know, at that time, the money meant absolutely nothing to me. I didn't care about the money and I made him raise the amount over and over and over again. I made him double it once and triple it again after that." Hitomi absently withdrew her legs off Van's knees and tucked them under her.

He let go of her and his chin lowered an inch.

"After that, I naturally didn't spend any money at all until the contract was over – nine months later. Then the withdrawal activity looks pretty normal. See? I was paying electricity bills and buying food like I normally did and because I earned so much interest in those nine months, I hardly touched the principle. Now as we get closer to the time that I sold myself to Sleeping Beauty Inc., it looks like I was travelling a lot, and my balance goes down accordingly."

Van leaned in closer.

"Now," Hitomi said, wetting her lower lip. "We get to the day before I had my memory wiped. I withdrew all my money, took my whole overdraft and maxed all my credit cards! Why the heck did I do that? How much does it cost to have your memory wiped?"

Van shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but I bet it doesn't cost one-point-five million. I thought getting your mind wiped was pretty equivalent in cost to getting a face-lift."

Hitomi sighed. "We'll have to research it."

"Can you think of a logical reason why you got your brain wiped?"

She nodded.

"Did it have anything to do with the guy you sold yourself to?"

She looked down to evade Van's gaze. "It had everything to do with the guy I sold myself to."

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time. I got some pretty sweet reviews. I do like reviews that are like, "Keep going!" But I also like longer reviews when people give me a little more of what they thought. I also like it when the same people review and when new people review. So, I opened a forum. It's in my forums under Shivering Wings. Check it out!_


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's Notes: Hiya everyone! Thank you to everyone who reviews. And now I'll admit. Yes, I didn't update last week because I got my copy of 'Factotum' in the mail. I love MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO soooo much. I'm finished now. So, here's another chapter for your pleasure. Enjoy.  
_

_

* * *

_

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Seven**

Van took the empty picnic supplies out of the chopper and put them in the cab of his truck. It was late and the sun had just dipped behind the mountains. A mystical twilight hung in the air as the first stars came into view. The air felt so clean. The world felt so fresh.

Today had been a great day. He had his first flight of the season. The couple he took over the ice fields had booked another flight at the end of the season when they were planning to spend a night at the house. They had even taken several copies of his newly-printed brochures to give to a few of their friends and everything was coming out roses … Except for the one thing that should have been a rose – Hitomi.

Van hadn't been sitting right since he heard that little tidbit of information about Hitomi's former owner. He hadn't even considered that she might remember anything about him, even if such a person existed. Now he felt suddenly outclassed and outranked and he didn't even know who the guy was. He didn't have it in him to ask Hitomi.

He leaned against the door of his truck and pulled out his phone. He knew there was a message waiting for him, but he hadn't had time to look at it while he was with his passengers, so he opened it now.

Some photographer wanted to scout out the area to find a perfect spot for a photo shoot. Van wrote his availability and sent it back. It was one more piece of evidence that things were really starting to pick up, so why did he feel so dead and blank inside?

He sighed. He didn't know how Dilandau did it.

Actually, the last time Van had been in town, he stopped in to see the old drunk and asked him.

Dilandau had been lounging in the stained recliner in his front room. Celena was working in the café and Merle was shirking work, so he was alone. Van never liked Dilandau. He was thirty-eight, which meant that he was a teenager when he became a father. Sometimes it was still like that in those small towns. Merle's mother had been a local girl and had died in the hospital. The townspeople said that she died of exhaustion. They said Dilandau had worked her to death. They said he didn't care that she died. Van wasn't so sure about that. Dilandau originally had brown hair, but it became white when his shot-gun-wedding wife died.

Now he half sat, half laid in his recliner, sucking on a beer and watching boxing on T.V. He hadn't shaved in days and his white stubble made him look even older. He barely glanced at Van as he came in.

Van took a seat on the couch behind Dilandau and waited for the old man to tell him to get out. At least, that was what he thought Dilandau would do. Maybe Dilandau would be a trifle less hostile since it was well known that Van had a girl living with him out at his place, because then Van couldn't be caught poaching either his daughter or his wife.

Van wasn't sure how much time passed before Dilandau abruptly turned off the T.V. and without turning around, asked, "You want something?"

It was hard for Van to describe exactly how uncomfortable he felt, but Dilandau was the only person he could think of to ask, so he plowed ahead, even though he thought he was stupid. "How did you ask your wife to marry you?"

Dilandau snorted and emptied his beer bottle. "I never really asked a woman to marry me. The first one came begging after I knocked her up and the second one just said it like it was a fact. Like, 'You're with me, you marry me'. She was funny. Like, 'It doesn't cost you anything'."

Wearily, Van shook his head and left. He shouldn't have expected anything more eloquent or useful from Dilandau.

The trouble was that Van wanted to move to the next level with Hitomi. After all that time, he really wanted to be with her, but how? How could he approach her and convince her of his sincerity? He couldn't just go up to her and say, "You! Me! Now a couple!" like a caveman and haul her off to his room over his shoulder. Instead, what he was faced with was worse. No matter what he did, or how awkward and stupid he was, or even if she didn't like him even a little bit, she wouldn't refuse him. The bracelet around her wrist guaranteed it.

He wanted to set her free and ask her out for real, but that wasn't possible either. If he set her free right then, there was immediate backlash. For starters, he needed her to help him earn the money to pay back her debt. If he didn't get it, he really would be in trouble and right now, he didn't have the money. The second problem was that she would probably turn around and sell herself again. She'd already done it twice, so what would stop her from doing it a second time? He couldn't let her sell herself again.

He was planning to ask Dilandau how he managed to fumble through that tunnel with Celena, but it didn't seem like Dilandau did anything special. Well, Van didn't want to go about it the same way as Dilandau, because it didn't seem to him that Dilandau's relationship with Celena was anything special. Following in his footsteps was a dumb idea.

As he moved the helicopter back into the hanger, he wondered about himself. Why were his feelings for her suddenly so real? What was it? Was it the time she shaved her head? It might have been. For a woman to take that kind of amputation so lifelessly seemed impossible, like something serious must have been wrong with her. She needed him to help her. He wanted to help her. Was it the way she acted during the renovations? At first, she was a brat, but slowly, she got tougher and more into it. He enjoyed her at all the stages of her growth. Now she seemed like a completely different person.

When he came out of the hanger, he saw her through the window, working in the kitchen. Something was steaming in a pot and her cheeks were rosy as she stirred and added things to the boil. He watched her as she washed her hands and took things from the fridge.

How could he not love her?

* * *

As it happened, Van didn't get a chance to tell Hitomi how he felt before their biggest customer arrived. It wasn't that there weren't chances. Van just let them slip through his fingers before he acted.

Like on the night he arrived home after his first flight. He snuck up behind her in the kitchen and put his hands over her eyes from behind. She screamed slightly and put her hands to his. He had a single moment when he thought of kissing the back of her neck, but he just stood frozen for the second that the opportunity was there and before he knew it, she was laughing and turning around to face him. Then he thought of kissing her mouth, but she was already shaking her head and moving back towards her boiling pot.

After that, Van couldn't stop thinking about her neck. That was one thing for a woman with her hair cut short. A man could always see her neck.

He chewed on his bread while they ate dinner together, but never felt full. Not with Hitomi there.

She was setting the table in neat little fashions that she had read about online and chatting happily about how pretty they were compared to the ritzy ones she had seen in her past life.

The next opportunity was the next time he helped her out of the chopper. He had her hand in his and then once her feet touched the ground, he let her go. She walked beside him with her hands in her pockets and he could have cursed. All he wanted to do was hold her hand. That wasn't even very demanding and he didn't have the guts to hang onto it.

The third screw up may have been the worst. He was at the city airfield picking up the photographer and he just gave her a quick call before his passenger's plane touched down.

"Call me again after you finish your tour, so that I'll know when to start cooking," Hitomi said on the other end of the line.

"Okay," Van said. "I love you. Bye."

He hadn't meant to say it. It was just sort of automatic while he was talking to her. He didn't even realize he had said it until he heard a tiny little scream on the other end.

"What did you just say?" Hitomi squeaked.

Van put an awkward hand to his forehead. Yeah, what had he just said? "What was it?" he asked mindlessly.

"What?" Hitomi balked, like she couldn't believe that he didn't know full-well what he said. "You just said that you loved me."

For a second, Van was speechless. He didn't know how he had managed to say it either. Now there were only two things to do, either he could deny it, or he could make a joke of it. The idea that he could lower his voice and say it seriously didn't even enter into his head. Instead, he opted to make a joke out of it. "Of course I love you, Baby," he said with over-ripe warmth.

"Huh?"

He wasn't sure if he was making a good go of this or not. "You're my Rose-girl - the girl who wears my bracelet. Right, my Rosy-posy-girl?" Van flinched. He shouldn't have mentioned the bracelet. And to add to it, his tone was bad.

He heard her sigh and swallow. "Yours to command," she replied somewhat icily. "Remember to give me a call. Bye."

She hung up and Van wanted to die. He banged his forehead on the door of his chopper.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Van Fanel?" someone behind him said.

Van turned around to see a well-dressed man bearing a runt in tow who was carrying his bags. He had a long face and navy coloured hair.

"Sorry," Van said, righting himself and taking off his sunglasses. "You don't have to speak so formally to me. I'm Van and I'll be your pilot."

"Great. I'm Gaddes. Can I lose this guy or do we need him to haul my stuff?"

"If you want him, we can have him and if you don't, he can go. If we're going to do a three day tour we can accommodate both of you … at … our … inn." Van slowed his words before stopping. If he had to give beds to both the photographer and his man, then Hitomi would have to sleep …

"You can go," Gaddess promptly dismissed, speaking to his lackey. "You can have the time off and I'll meet you back here when I'm finished scoping the wilds."

The non-descript guy ducked his head appreciatively and disappeared down the airstrip.

Well, Van sighed inwardly, that dream didn't last long.

Van helped Gaddes into the available front seat and then stowed the man's luggage.

"Ready?" Van asked, getting into place.

* * *

When Hitomi first saw Gaddes, she thought she was in serious trouble. She had to cook for a man who looked like that? Crap! He was probably used to eating really exotic amazing things like pickled eel and deviled oyster. She had nothing like that. Ever since it became illegal to eat beef, the possible meals that could be achieved locally had seriously bombed. She made grilled acorn squash with parmesan cheese and garlic bread. Luckily, the man seemed satisfied and ate with relish.

"Very good," he said like he truly appreciated her efforts. He sat back in his chair and admired the room Van and Hitomi had worked so hard to bring up to speed. "I've always wanted to film in this part of the world, but every time I made enquiries as to how I could explore this place, I was always told I would have to live in a tent or a trailer. I guess those people didn't know about this place, and I don't know why not."

"This is the first year we've offered accommodations," Van said easily.

Hitomi thought that Van was just the right amount of friendly to this photographer. He was neither too eager to please him nor too inattentive.

"Do you think you could put up with a spoiled model and two of his staff?" Gaddes asked.

Van turned to Gaddes from smiling at Hitomi. "Hmm?"

"If I find a good location, I'll need to put up at least four other people; my model (a brat if ever there was one) his makeup artist, his stylist, and my assistant. Do you think you would be able to find beds for all of them?"

"Right now, we've only got two rooms available. The room you're staying in and our tower."

"And there's nothing else nearby?"

"Not really."

"It doesn't matter where me and my assistant sleep. We could sleep with foamalate mattresses in here if we have to, but the girls and the princess … ahem … I mean, prince will need actual beds. Is that possible?"

Van pursed his lips. "Perhaps. Are you that positive that you'll be able to find a location?"

"Yes, but aren't you even a little bit curious as to who my model is when I so openly defame him?"

Van and Hitomi laughed in slightly hysterical unison. "We're not too curious about the celebrity scene," Van said.

Hitomi nodded. "Yeah, we're way too busy."

Gaddes smiled. "You know, I think in all my travels, you two are the one of the happiest couples I have ever met."

Both of them abruptly stopped laughing.

Gaddes looked quickly between them. "You're not brother and sister, are you?"

Van glanced at her and Hitomi held her breath. It wasn't her place to answer now. She stayed silent while he said, "No. It's just that we're not exactly in that kind of relationship."

"Well, that's too bad." Then to shift the conversation back to the photo shoot, he pulled out his phone and brought up a picture.

A picture of an extremely handsome blond man came up. The picture was an advertisement for men's shoes. It was a black and white photo with the model standing ramrod straight with his long hair flowing down to his waist.

Hitomi blinked.

"That's right. It's Allen Schezar," Gaddes said gloatingly.

Then she fell on the floor.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Once again - thanks to everyone who reviews and visits the forum. I'll see y'all there._


	8. Chapter 8

**Red Rose: Model 85001**

**Chapter Eight**

Van stood at the bottom of the stairs to the tower and gazed up the middle of the upward spiral. He couldn't help noticing the discoloured cracked paint. Hitomi was right. They did need to continue their renovation upstairs. He rolled his left shoulder and chuckled slightly. Even if the stair well didn't look its best, it was nothing compared to the distress the drywall was in in his own room.

He could hear Hitomi up in the tower. She was making the regular little creaking noises that she made padding around her room as she got ready for bed. Van wanted to climb those stairs and talk to her. And he didn't want to. His brain was rapidly formulating reasons to let the forthcoming conversation slide. One; he should wait until Gaddes left. Two; it didn't matter who owned her before. Three; hearing her story probably wouldn't change anything.

He was being stupid.

Van uncrossed his arms and started up the steps. When he got to the door, he didn't hesitate, but knocked a crisp little knock. He couldn't run away from this. Whatever he felt, he needed to know what the situation was before the guy got here.

Hitomi called for him to come in.

He opened the door and saw her. She had just emerged from the bathroom. She was folding a black towel and wearing a pair of oversized men's pajamas. Well, oversized on her. He recognized the pair. It was a set of his he had given her weeks ago that he told her were okay to tear into rags.

He was about to say something about it, when he realized that she was wearing something he had worn for years. And suddenly he was happy that she hadn't thrown them away.

"Can I close the door?" he asked wearily.

Hitomi nodded and sat down on the corner of the bed.

Van took a deep breath and said, "I take it you know this Allen Schezar guy? He was your former owner?"

She nodded again and knotted the towel she was holding.

"Uh-huh. Care to tell me anything more about it than that?"

Hitomi bit her lip. "How much do you want to know?"

That was really the question, wasn't it? Van frowned and took the towel from her hands, so that he would have something to knot to relieve the tension. "As much as possible."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Why not? He's coming here, isn't he? I'd like to be prepared." He was getting impatient.

"I've known him since I was fifteen," she explained, her voice dry. "My family lived in a cottage on Allen's family's property. My father and brother were hired to help care for their trees. My father worked for his father, and Allen had long since moved out, but he was around from time to time."

"During that time," Van cut in. "What was your relationship with him?"

"I didn't have one," Hitomi shrugged. "He was the son of the house and I was less than a servant. I had a crush on him," Hitomi grudgingly admitted.

"So, how did it happen that he asked to buy you?"

"It was seven years later. It was pathetic, but I was still trying to catch his eye when I was twenty-two. Then one day, I did. He knew I liked him. It seemed that he knew I'd liked him for years and within two days of dating, he asked to buy me for nine months."

"He was _that_ taken with you?" Van asked, completely astonished. "And offer you that kind of money?"

"It seemed too good to be true, which was why I made him raise the price so many times. Other than that, all I remember is being so lovesick over him I was sometimes literally ill. In the end, I couldn't refuse him."

Van didn't say anything at first. He could only deduct that since she didn't remember hardly anything since that moment that she must still be harbouring those feelings of love for Allen.

"And I don't have any idea what happened that made me want to forget that time with him," Hitomi continued. "From the bank statements, it's clear that our arrangement didn't go beyond the nine months. That's all I know."

"And that you still love him," Van said, betraying not even an ounce of what he felt.

Hitomi looked up quickly at his accusation. "I guess I do."

"Well, I'd like to make it clear that any request he makes of you beyond what is expected of a hostess will be looked down on by me. I don't want to catch you holding his hand or even lingering by his table when you bring him food. Other than a polite greeting, I want you to forget that you even know him. Do you think you'll be able to do that?"

Hitomi shook her head miserably. "You don't know what he's like. He'll probably insist that I stay by his side the whole time and because he's so rich and powerful and the whole focus of their visit here – you'll probably be forced to bend over and comply with anything he wants."

"Like Hell I will!" Van fairly shouted. "Why should I have to do that? You think one spoiled pretty boy can hurt this business I've built up? Even if this place isn't as successful as I hope this year – the worst thing that could happen is that I would—"

"Have your knees broken?" Hitomi supplied.

He scowled at her.

"Look, if things went really badly, you could always rent me out to get the twenty thousand dollars to pay my debt off. That would be the fairest thing. After all, it's not your debt," Hitomi said stiffly. She had been wracking her brains for weeks, trying to figure out how she could help Van pay that debt if they didn't make enough money during the summer and renting herself out was the only thing she could think of.

For a second, Van looked like he was going to strangle her with the towel he was knotting. "You think I'd do that to you?"

Hitomi dropped her shoulders. "Well, what do you suggest?" she asked limply. "I don't want anything painful to happen to you."

Van moved his lips into the most unpleasant sneer. "Did you happen to have a renter in mind?"

"What?"

"Well," Van went on, his voice as searing as liquid metal. "Since Allen Schezar is coming here, are you suggesting that I rent you out to him during his stay? He opens his wallet big for you. Are you thinking that you could make three days worth twenty-thousand dollars?"

Hitomi stared at Van incredulously.

"I guess you couldn't make it worth his while without touching him!" Van spat, flinging the door open and storming down the stairs.

He heard Hitomi come after him, but he didn't stop. He went straight to his room and slammed the door behind him. Then he locked it and raked his hair with his hands.

"Van! Wait! I didn't mean it like that!" he heard Hitomi scream on the other side of the door.

Van had only been behaving like a lovesick teenager for about two minutes and even though he would have liked to continue, he took a deep breath and opened the door. Standing in the hallway, Hitomi's cheeks looked red with embarrassment and her eyes wide with pleading. Van didn't forgive her for what she said just because she looked sorry or because she was wearing his old pajamas. Her comment meant that he didn't mean anything to her. He was embarrassed by his feelings for her. Not to mention how humiliated he was for reacting so passionately.

To make himself seem somewhat more sensible after his flare of temper, he said to her levelly, "I'm not renting you out."

She nodded and wrung her fingers together.

"I don't care what you did for that Schezar guy in the past; you're not doing it again. Got it?"

She bit her lip, and Van supposed that the slight motion of her head meant that she was agreeing with him. "I wasn't thinking of that," she finally said quietly. "I was thinking that maybe I could get a job in town, and …"

"There aren't any jobs in town."

"But Celena always looks so tired at the café."

Van crossed his arms and tried to ebb his frustration. "Even if I got you a job there, the pay for the rest of the year would be less than what we need. There's no point."

Hitomi sighed and her shoulders fell.

"No, Hitomi. It's no good," Van said, sparing one hand to touch her arm briefly. "Don't worry about the debt. I'll figure it out somehow."

Then he sent her to bed, but that didn't make him feel any better. At this point, nothing could make him feel better.

* * *

Hitomi sat in the café in town and watched Celena. She was trying to clean out a soft ice cream machine and watching her was making Hitomi feel exhausted to the bone. The café was empty except for the two of them and the sound of Celena's squeaking scrubbing tools.

Hitomi was taking a break sponsored by Van. He didn't usually leave her in the café to rest while he loaded supplies, but that was how things were rolling since the night she mentioned to him that he ought to rent her out. Hitomi didn't mean it the way he imagined. He clearly hadn't read his Sleeping Beauty handbook. If he had, he'd know that her bracelet would give out an electric shock intended to fry both her and the man touching her if the guy left his hand on her for an extended period of time – anything longer than two minutes. She explained it to Van in the morning. However, to her disappointment, it didn't seem to make him feel any better.

She didn't know what to make of that. Van was nice to her, but in the end, he'd still forked up the cash for her and she still wore the bracelet. She couldn't go to Allen even if he wanted her. Right now, she was wearing a scrap of blue silk left over from the curtains she'd made for the kitchen over her bracelet from Sleeping Beauty Inc. There was no point in regretting being with Van instead of Allen. She had no idea what drove her back into slavery. Regret was unthinkable.

Suddenly, Hitomi got the urge to talk to Celena. After all, she was the only person Hitomi could talk to who _might_ understand her feelings. "So, Merle doesn't even know that you were bought?" Hitomi asked, scooping up her remaining salsa with her last chip.

Celena tilted her head and didn't answer.

Hitomi looked back at her and didn't do anything to press her other than leave her ears open. Waiting for Celena to respond was better than sitting around wishing she was free to belong to Allen again.

When Celena finally did speak, her answer surprised Hitomi. "To be honest, I'm not really interested in keeping it a secret from her. You see, this isn't the first time I've sold myself and it really isn't the first time I've lost days and weeks and months and years in cryostasis. If she doesn't know already – I don't care to bother with keeping the secret. It's never come up in conversation."

Hitomi nodded and picked a piece of melted cheese off her empty nacho plate.

"Why? Do you care if it becomes public knowledge that you're a Sleeping Beauty model?"

"No," Hitomi answered breezily. "But Van seems to care."

A weary whisper of a smile spread itself across her face. "I guess he would care."

"Van says you're in your thirties. Are you really?"

Celena blew a strand of her hair out of her eyes. "In a very real way, I'm only in my early thirties, but if you go by the calendar on the wall, I'm actually in my late fifties."

Hitomi's jaw dropped.

"How is that possible?"

"My last husband, owner, whatever he was, liked to put me in cryostasis whenever he was about to do something I wasn't going to like. He was always dipping his fingers into something dirty and since he couldn't stop my disapproval, no matter how many times he punished me, he found it easier just to remove me from the situation until he had had his fun or made his money. Then when he came to get me, I hadn't aged a day and I wasn't angry because I didn't know what he'd done. Whatever it was, it was always water under the bridge by the time he unfroze me. He used to leave me in cryostasis for years on end sometimes. He's dead now. God rest his soul. And I didn't waste my best years on him."

Hitomi was speechless.

But Celena went on. "I'll never forget the last time he came to get me. He'd aged – terribly and failed. It was his brother who had been paying to keep me in cryostasis for the past three years and he wouldn't pay anymore, so my darling husband had to come unfreeze me."

Hitomi suddenly wanted to know. "Then you remember a lot about him?"

The smiled disappeared. She nodded and left the spot by the counter that was her perch. She came over to Hitomi's table and took a seat. "I should know. I was married to him for twenty-six years, but I spent around sixteen of those years frozen."

"Does the memory make you unhappy?" Hitomi asked, observing Celena's lifeless expression.

The other woman raked the skin on her face from her temple to her jawline with her fingernails. "It's over and the memory of it is like a life that wasn't mine. You should know how lucky you are to have been bought by Van. He's a good man."

Hitomi was about to agree, when Merle suddenly burst in through the door. "Oh, it's you," she said haughtily when she saw Hitomi. Then she slid behind the bar and retrieved her phone from under the counter.

"I've told you a hundred times. Don't leave here without that," Celena said crossly to Merle. "Dil hates it when he can't get you on the phone."

Merle smirked and said casually, "I'll remember next time."

It was clearly a lie.

"Has _she_ already told you the good news?" Merle yelled to Celena across the café.

"There's good news?" Celena asked, perking up slightly. "Are you and Van getting married?"

"As if!" Merle shrieked before Hitomi could answer for herself. "No! Van said he's getting a celebrity to tour the ice fields in his chopper. Guess who?" Merle pressed a few buttons on her phone and within seconds projected a glamour shot of Allen Schezar on the wall of the café.

Hitomi ducked her head. Even looking at him was difficult - painful. How had she let him slip through her fingers? That night when she promised to sell herself to him, she had promised herself that their time together would never end. She would make him fall in love with her. How had it gone wrong?

Even in the midst of her discomfort, Hitomi couldn't help noticing Celena's reaction to the picture. She didn't look the least bit impressed. She actually raised her eyebrow and let out a half-laugh that seemed to die in her throat. Then she got up and wiped her hands on her clothes like she was trying to brush off disgust that just wouldn't come off.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews and visits the forum and comments. Next week, we'll get into the nitty gritty for this story. I've done all my prep work. You can access my forum by clicking on my profile, my forums, and going to Shivering Wings. Sorry, I've exceeded my limit for forums I can put in the Escaflowne section, so you have to access it this way._

_I posted on my profile what I plan to do with my story 'Dragon's Moon'. I plan to re-release it on fictionpress when I'm finished writing this story. It has been edited extensively and it is exquisite. Please look forward to it. Love is all around the world tonight.  
_


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's Notes: I had a comment last week about how my chapters should be longer. Don't think I didn't hear you! Honestly, I intended to make this chapter longer, but truthfully, I have been dead dog sick since Sunday. Today, my eyes stopped streaming enough for me to see straight. So, there might be more errors in this chapter than usual. That's not my style, but really - I'm beat. _

* * *

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Nine**

Hitomi sat in the back courtyard and pulled weeds, which were promptly chewed up by a visiting cow. The cow didn't have a lot to say, but it seemed to like dancing. It took one step forward and then two steps back over and over again. Then it ate the long weeds Hitomi offered it with what might have been a sideways smile, or it might have been cow speak for, "You think this will stop me from eating your flowers after you go into the house?"

Hitomi sighed.

Van left that morning to pick up Allen, Gaddes, and the two stylists in the chopper the next Tuesday. Gaddes' assistant had been making himself at home in the downstairs bedroom, since Van had picked him and all the company's luggage up the day before. Hitomi was left to do the finishing touches on her bedroom – which Allen would be sleeping in during his stay – and to do the final preparations for the food. Hitomi was rather loath to do either of these things, so she was hiding out in the yard. For starters, she knew that Allen would not like the tower the way it was. The man was a millionaire and a snob and it wouldn't suit him to sleep in a bedroom with a springy mattress and a faulty paint job. Hitomi planned to make it as luxurious as she could by burning flavoured bees' wax and replacing the sheets and blankets with new things. She had already unloaded all her personal items into a couple plastic boxes and took them downstairs to Van's room. That was the only room that wouldn't be seen during their guest's visit, or so Hitomi thought. When she was finished with her bedroom she would have to work on the food, which she knew he wouldn't like either. He was the type of man to sneak illegal meat on the side and anyone who didn't serve it to him chopped really fine was below the standard. Well, Van didn't do that sort of thing.

Now Hitomi could feel the cow's breath on the side of her neck, but when she turned to look at it, it was afraid and jumped eight steps back.

Hitomi stood up and watched the cow head off to where ever it had come from. It was getting fat because it ate off the green hills that came with the late spring in the mountains. Hitomi was like that cow too. Her hair was long enough to fall on her forehead, and she'd become so comfortable with Van that she'd forgotten all about the ugly world and how it worked. Lucky for her, it was coming for a visit.

And unlike the cow, she had nowhere to run away to.

* * *

Van was okay waiting on the AstroTurf until he saw Allen, and then he felt kinda queasy. Allen stood a whole head taller than him. Van practically had to look up to the bean pole. His height wasn't the only thing; everything else about him was hyper annoying. He was anorexic skinny. His straight blond hair fell all the way to his waist. His skin was practically white and flawless without a speck of stubble, almost as though he could never grow a beard in his life. He was wearing a fish scale coat that was barely legal and what for? Who to impress? They were in the middle of nowhere!

Annoying.

Van swallowed it and shook hands with Gaddes.

Allen removed his smoky purple sunglasses and looked around the flight pad like a bored goddess, for lack of a better description. Van felt a whole new level of revulsion creep up his throat.

Then he went up and introduced himself.

"Yes. I've heard," Allen said breezily, not looking at Van but staring out at the expanse of prairie before him. "About everything, so you don't need to tell me how much effort has gone into my accommodations. I'm sure they'll be below sub-standard and that I'll wish for death before I'm gone."

"I'm sure I will too," Van said quietly as he stepped back towards the chopper.

"What was that?" Allen said, turning to Van for the first time.

"I'm sure that's not true," Van amended. "If there's nothing else you need to do in the city, I can seat you right away and we can get going."

Allen opened his mouth to answer, but Gaddes spoke up first. "That's great. Let's go."

Once inside, the noise of the chopper blades beating furiously overhead, conversation was difficult and Van couldn't have been more grateful, but it wasn't long before they touched ground outside the house. Van helped everyone down and Gaddes said something about how they should all go on one of Van's ice tours before they left if there was time.

"There won't be," Allen said, moving ahead of the other men and the stylists. "I need every last minute to achieve perfection."

Van caught up to Allen and walked a few paces in front of him, but to Van's surprise it seemed he couldn't stand for Van to walk ahead of him and he sped up his steps so that Van was behind him. Van twitched and went ahead, but Allen jumped ahead of him again.

"You're acting like you can't wait to see her," Van said, suddenly stepping right beside Allen.

"Who gave you permission to stand this close to me?" Allen spat. "And who can't I wait to see? No one I know could possibly be in this Hell hole."

"Don't be so sure." Van exhaled and said sharply, "Listen snob, I don't care if you want to act like this. That's up to you, but I want to make something clear to you before you go into the house."

Allen stopped in front of the front door and brushed his coat away from his hip so that he could rest his hand haughtily on it. "What's that?"

"Even if you used to own her, you don't anymore, so don't take any liberties. Got it?"

When Allen heard that, he slowed right down. His face went from pale to bluish and clammy. Van moved to open the door, but Allen grabbed his arm. "What do you mean? I only ever bought Hitomi. Are you saying that you're her new owner?"

Van flicked Allen's hand off his arm and said, "That's what I'm saying."

Inside, Van and Allen walked into the fragrance that could only be Hitomi preparing what could best be described as an afternoon tea. Van loved the smell of bread baking, and he loved it even more when it was coming out of his own kitchen.

Hitomi came out when she heard them come in. When she saw Allen, her face fell. Van knew that was her shy face. It didn't mean anything.

Instead of introducing them, he went up and put his arm around her shoulder and whispered, "Why don't I show them to their rooms while you finish up in the kitchen? You can meet everyone later."

Hitomi ducked her head obediently and went back to work.

Allen clenched his jaw and watched her go like he wanted to say something to her.

But Van stepped in front of him. "Your things have already been taken upstairs. Shall I show you where your room is?"

Allen nodded, and Van led him past the kitchen and up the tower steps.

Van was expecting Allen to make a comment about how shabby the place was, but he was utterly silent as he moved silently behind Van, making occasional checks on the banister or on top of a picture frame for dust. He seemed satisfied that there wasn't any.

"This is my room?" the model asked dully when they reached the room.

"Yes. The bathroom is through there and there's a closet here. I apologize, but we didn't think it would be right to unpack your luggage ourselves, so we've left it for your stylist to do."

"That's fine," Allen said tightly.

"Lunch will be served in about half an hour if you'd care to eat. Please make yourself at home," Van said with a fake smile before turning to leave. He was just happy that the jerk didn't have to know that it was Hitomi's room.

* * *

Hitomi watched their guests eat the lunch she had prepared from the safety of the kitchen. Besides, all six people really crowded their dining room. There wasn't really room for her or Van to sit unless they sat on the couch.

Van came and stood next to her in front of the counter.

"How am I doing?" she asked nervously.

"Fine from what I can tell. They're eating, aren't they? So, they can't accuse us of starving them."

"I guess," Hitomi said, biting her thumb.

Van put a hand on her shoulder and said, "There's no reason to be this nervous, is there?"

"We'll see," Hitomi replied. She knew that dinner would be the difficult event. After all, Allen wasn't even eating the lunch. He was pacing in the conservatory.

When dinner finally came, Van didn't force them to eat in the kitchen. After they had served their guests soup and salad and offered them their main course, Van and Hitomi took their plates and sat down in arm chairs on either side of the hearth.

"Don't worry," Van said as they loaded their plates. "Gaddes doesn't want us to hide in the kitchen."

Hitomi nodded and followed Van into the living room awkwardly.

Once there, Allen seemed to take particular notice of her. She also noted that before he saw her he seemed to have taken particular notice of a bottle of wine, which he had brought himself and emptied half of into his glass.

"Hitomi," he said, not sounding remotely drunk. "Do you know how many times I've wondered what happened to you? I've spent days and nights and weeks asking myself where you might have gone. It seemed like you'd dropped off the face of the world."

Hitomi coloured and after a glance at Van, answered. "Sorry, I didn't know that I should have kept in touch. Besides, I couldn't."

"Why not?"

Hitomi didn't even think before she answered. The fruits of years of training with her father to answer truthfully and immediately when asked a question were coming to bear. "I have been in cryostasis the past three years at SLI." She turned it into an acronym hoping that then he wouldn't know what she was talking about.

"Oh, I see," Allen said, understanding completely as he swirled the wine in his glass. "You sold yourself to Sleeping Beauty Inc. That's a fairly good company. My father had my aunt sent there for a cryostasis treatment after my uncle died. She was so tragic, but they kept her well for over twelve years to my understanding. She was a Cinderella. What were you, Hitomi?"

She bowed her head and answered stiffly. "I was a Rose Red."

"Huh? How interesting. Do you know the story of Rose Red? It's not as famous as the story of Thumbelina or Rapunzel. Would you like to hear me tell it?"

Allen didn't wait for anyone in the room to say if they wanted to hear a spoiled model tell them a bedtime story and started telling it. "Once upon a time," Allen said. His voice low and practiced like an actor's. "There was a beautiful young woman who lived in a prosperous kingdom. Her name was Rose Red. The king was wise and proud and the queen was the possessor of the most wondrous beauty and though I know it will surprise none of you – she was the fairest in the land. Rose Red was a serving wench in the castle, and the proud king began to have eyes for her as his queen aged. Time passed and soon there was nothing left to the old man but his desire for Rose Red. Naturally, this didn't please the queen and she sent her most loyal general to kill the wench. As he took her into the forest, he intended to cut out her heart, just as the queen commanded, but as he stood with his knife poised over her breast – he found that he couldn't do it. Instead, he sought to ravage her on the forest floor."

Hitomi gasped.

"That was a fate worse than death for a virgin in those times, but luckily Rose Red's screams brought help. A troll wielding a club found them and recognizing the situation, slammed the general with his club and shattered his skull against a tree." Allen picked up an olive from his plate and dropped it into his wine. "Rose Red thanked the troll and asked him if there was anything she could do to show her gratitude to him for his kindness to her. Can any of you guess what he asked her to do?"

"Be his wife?" one of the stylists suggested with a tinny giggle.

"No. Though that was what he wanted, he lacked the courage to ask her to be his bride. Instead, he asked her to clean and repair his home, so that he might live more comfortably."

"So, how does the story end? Does she fall in love with the troll?"

"Alas, she does not. While cleaning his house, she finds a cellar full of gold. Seeking her independence, she steals the gold and leaves the troll with no companionship and no treasure. On her way home she hears that the old queen has died and travels back to marry the old king who once lusted after her and lives happily ever after."

Hitomi sucked in her breath. That wasn't the story of Rose Red. The story of Snow White and Rose Red was about two girls who helped a dwarf get his beard out of a log. Allen wasn't talking about fairy tales. He was talking about something else, but Hitomi thought she knew what it was. It was obvious and insulting that he was casting Van in the role of the troll, but then who was he casting himself as? Hitomi remembered a certain princess type girl with blonde hair and knew that Allen was making her the queen and himself into the old King. And if that were the case, who was the general? Hitomi didn't know. That must be someone from the part of her life that she didn't remember.

But there was another meaning to the story and it made Hitomi shudder uncomfortably.

* * *

On the other side of the hearth, Van couldn't stand it any longer. He knew that Allen made all that up. "That's not how the story goes," he said severely, flicking something off his pant leg into the fire. "You just made all that up. In the story Rose Red and Snow White take money from a wicked dwarf who won't pay them for their services, but there's not the scank you suggest. Rose Red's story is as pure as a bar of soap."

Allen laughed heartily and swirled his wine again. "Who knew you'd be so well versed in fairy tales? You look like a fighter pilot."

Van only knew the fairy tale because he had read it especially because of Hitomi, but he didn't find it to be a very spell binding tale. There wasn't any romance in it and all it was about was forcing a cruel little rich man to pay what was due. But rather than admit any of that he simply responded with, "Excuse me for being well read."

After that, Allen tried to pick Van's brains about exactly how well read he was, but Van excused himself by helping Hitomi clear away the dishes.

"Your friend is delightful," Van said to Hitomi when they were alone in the kitchen. "Was he always so charming?"

Hitomi's smile seemed forced as she replied. "Actually, he's being a good deal nicer than I remember. He hasn't complained about the food and he brought his own liquor, so there was no whining about the fact that we don't have a liquor license. He hasn't sneered about the room or asked for better accommodations, has he?"

"No, but that reminds me," Van said, sidling towards her so he could speak quietly into her ear. "I've decided to give Gaddes my room to sleep in. He plans to let the girls bunk up in the downstairs bedroom and he packed two cots with his gear so he'll have his man sleep in the front room with the cot."

"So where are we going to sleep?"

Van winced. "In the hanger. Sounds cozy, doesn't it?"

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviews. Hope y'all enjoy the chapter. Review - I need the encouragement. Now I'm gonna go collapse some place soft. _


	10. Chapter 10

**Rose Red**

**Chapter Ten**

"We're going to sleep in the hanger? Where?" Hitomi asked as they crossed the green lawn towards the metal building.

"You'll see," Van said without the humour that usually dusted his voice.

The hanger was actually much larger than it needed to be to house the helicopter. Hitomi thought that he could have fit a small airplane inside, or another chopper. The building had two huge doors on either side of it, so that an air vehicle could be pulled out of either side at the same time if someone wanted to do that. Van also used the hanger to park his truck, but it seemed small in the huge airy building. On one side there were stairs that led to an overhang. Hitomi had gone up there a time or two to look at the chopper from overhead. Van led her up there now.

Hitomi always felt a swell of pity as she passed the chopper. It didn't have a name. It had a sleek black paint job, but the only thing written on the side was its number.

"Are you ever going to name it?" Hitomi asked quietly as she set her overnight bag by the railing.

"No," Van answered. He was pulling boxes down from the shelves.

Hitomi turned around and looked at him. "Would you like some help?" she asked as he freed a blowup mattress from its packing.

He sighed. "How could I ask you to help? You already prepared the guest rooms, even though none of them were properly renovated, made lunch for everyone, cleaned up, made dinner for everyone, cleaned up, made dessert for everyone, cleaned up, and then tomorrow you have to do it all over again."

"You helped," Hitomi scoffed.

"Well, how about if I get our beds ready as a thank you for doing what I told you to do about Allen?"

"Okay," Hitomi said, turning around to look at the helicopter. She had been trying to shut possible thoughts of Allen out of her brain. She didn't want to think about him. She couldn't understand it. She remembered liking him so much. She remembered her heart almost rupturing when he walked past the cottage when he was visiting his father. She remembered how glad she had felt when he made her the offer to buy her.

But her first thought when she saw him was, "Has he really gotten so old?" She thought about it more as she watched him through the day. It wasn't really that he looked old. It was more that he looked purple and green like a bruise. His skin looked thin, like it was barely holding his insides in. Had he been doing drugs, or was it just the hardness of life had taken away his bloom? Hitomi didn't know. Besides, how could Allen's life be hard?

Since she woke up in Sleeping Beauty Inc. she had been operating on the idea that he was still the same as when she had known him when she was twenty-two, but when he told his version of the story of Rose Red, something inside her twitched. It wasn't like a memory, it was like the muscles and cells in her body knew the way he made her feel during the time she couldn't remember – that nauseated stomach flip, that feeling of sudden thirst, those words that were knotted up in her throat that she couldn't say because of his position.

The long and short of it was that her body didn't want Allen anywhere near her, even if her brain still said that she did.

She also knew the point of his little story. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. It was practically like he had drawn her ear close to his mouth and whispered the words, "Find out where Van keeps his money. If you can steal enough of it, I'll take you back. You want to be back, don't you?"

Except that Hitomi didn't want to be back. She didn't know what life was like when she belonged to Allen, but she would rather stay with Van no matter what. Besides, she reassured herself like a fool, Van didn't have any money. What a joke! Van is a troll with a cellar full of treasure. Ridiculous!

It was at that moment that Hitomi, looking down on the floor of the hanger, saw a square of metal that was out of place. She might be daft, but it looked like a small trap door within a larger door.

"Van, what's that?" she asked, pointing.

Van came up behind her and saw what she was pointing to. A huge grin broke out on his face when he saw what she was pointing to. "Oh, that? Yeah, I have been meaning to show you that, but the right time didn't come. Just wait until I get these mattresses blown up and I'll take you down."

Hitomi took herself away from the railing and stood apart, waiting for Van to finish. She clenched and unclenched her fists and snapped her fingers. There was no way Van had anything valuable in his cellar. There was probably nothing valuable there at all.

Van finished up and stood up. Then he led her down the stairs.

On the floor of the hanger, he moved a tiny piece of flat metal off the floor to reveal a key pad, when he covered his hand and entered a ten digit number. Then there was a clicking sound from under the floor and Van closed the key pad. Then he reached down, and pulled up on a handle and the door opened.

"Hang on a second," he said as pulled the door way way over so that the whole panel laid flat on the ground.

Hitomi stared.

There were no stairs leading down into the basement. No way to get down at all. It was just a hole in the ground that opened to a space so large it looked like it was almost half of the floor area above. Van flicked on a light and Hitomi saw something amazing – another helicopter. This one wasn't black, but silver and shiny missing its blades.

"What's this?"

"Escaflowne. My other chopper," Van said gloatingly.

"Why? How?" she stuttered. "How could you afford this?"

Van sighed angrily. "I keep telling you that I make good money doing what I do. Why don't you believe me already? That chopper," Van said indicating the black one "has been in my family for years. My grandfather bought her for thirteen million dollars in 2053. Crazy, eh? This one down here is one that I've been working on myself."

"How much does this one cost?"

Van crossed his arms and looked at it thoughtfully like he was doing a rack of calculations. "I'm not sure. I started buying parts for the beast when I was a teenager. I've been working on her for eight years. There's not a lot to do out here, so I've had a lot of time to myself."

Hitomi was on the verge of having a panic attack. "How much?" she nearly shrieked.

Van laughed at her. "In the end, probably twice what my granddaddy paid for that one, but that was ages ago and costs have gone up. Escaflowne is worth a whole lot more than the money I put into her. That was what I wanted to tell you," he said, suddenly taking her shoulder. "You shouldn't worry about that twenty thousand dollars. I can just sell off one of her less important parts and we're in business!"

Hitomi thought she would faint.

"What?" Van asked, observing her not-so-happy expression. "No broken knees. I thought this would make you happy." He jokingly kicked the back of her leg.

Hitomi's knees did not buckle. She just stood there and stared off into the gaping hole in front of her. Now she realized that Allen didn't need to see anything other than the black chopper to understand that Van had money. I was just tied up in choppers right now. "Cover this up," she said quietly. She didn't want anyone coming in and seeing it.

She knew Van was watching her as she crossed the floor and climbed the steps, but she had to get away from him. She didn't want him to see her shamed face.

* * *

Van had set out two double mattresses for them, but by the time he'd finished closing the hatch over Escaflowne Hitomi had already put sheets, pillows, and blankets on them. She was actually already lying on one mattress with her back to him and her eyes shut by the time he caught up.

Van didn't know what he did wrong. Didn't she like his handiwork? This was why he never showed anyone his work. He'd never even mentioned it to Celena or Merle. Besides, it wasn't like he was his dad. He'd only got the thing running like it should two weeks ago. It would have taken his dad under a month. It took Van eight years.

Pulling his blanket over his head, he proceeded to change. There was no point being nervous about putting on his pajamas. It wasn't like Hitomi was going to turn around.

As he whipped off his shirt, he felt a chill across his shoulders. Maybe it was too early in the year to be sleeping in here. He only had a space heater on the main level and a stove in the basement. Neither of which were anywhere near where they were planning to sleep.

There was one blanket left on the shelf. Van got it and spread it out on Hitomi's bed.

She clasped it with her fingers and tugged it up to her chin without looking at him. "Thank you," she said stiffly.

"No trouble," Van said easily, as he reached for his pajama bottoms. "Let me know if you're cold during the night." Even though he said that, he had no idea what more he could do for her other than give her the blanket he'd already given her.

So with that thought, he buttoned up his red and black plaid shirt and hopped into bed himself.

* * *

Hitomi shivered. Not only was she suffering from the sleeplessness most people sleeping in unfamiliar beds faced, but it was only the beginning of June and it felt like the frost had just come off the ground. She was missed her bed desperately. There was a wheezing little worm making itself comfortable in the pit of her stomach when she thought about Allen sleeping in her bed. It really disturbed her and she couldn't say why. She was just beastly uncomfortable all round. For starters, it was cold. She hated the cold since she was from a warmer climate, but tonight it went straight through her bones. Then, she had no idea what time it was, except that it was still dark out. How many more hours was she going to have to endure this? She couldn't figure. She wanted to go into the house to warm up, but there wasn't even one room that wasn't occupied.

Then she heard Van sort of snort and roll onto his side away from her, and her brain clicked. She should go over and crawl into bed with him, but her brain revolted against the idea. What was this? A blanket scenario in a cheesy romance? She scoffed at herself.

But pride had its place and she soon realized that a mountain region after nightfall was not the place for it. She picked up both her blankets and dragged them over to Van's mattress. She laid both of them neatly over top of his current blanket and slid her freezing toes into the bed beside him.

At first her plan was to stay as far away from him in the bed as possible, but within seconds she was repenting of her rash thinking and was snuggling into the warm that was Van. It was as though he made the sweetest warmest heavenliest pocket in the blankets and it was everything she wanted to be a part of. Even his feet were warm. And when she tucked her face into the nook under his shoulder blade, she was so comfortable she didn't even need a pillow.

For the first few minutes, she couldn't stop glancing at him to see how he would react to her presence, but he didn't seem to notice and soon she was too tired to check on his status. She fell blissfully asleep.

* * *

"How long are you planning to sleep?" A voice burst out of nowhere.

Van jumped.

To his astonishment, Allen was standing in the hanger and the only thing that Van could process about the situation was that the man was wearing orange plastic pants. "What happened?" Van mumbled. "Did you wet yourself?"

Allen tapped his top angrily. "Shut up. These are one-of-a-kind Milwitch designer trousers sewn for me by Milwitch herself, but what would you know?"

"Ah, I see," Van said, still half asleep. "Are they for fishing in? Is that how you got your coat from the other day? Fishing?"

Allen huffed in response to Van's taunting. "It's pointless even talking to you."

"Well, why are you talking to me?" Van asked. "It's six twenty-three. Hitomi and I aren't supposed to have breakfast ready until eight o'clock. This is hardly sleeping in. What's the problem?"

"I want my breakfast early." Allen explained.

When Hitomi heard that, she stirred. It wasn't until that moment that Van realized that she was in bed with him. Van wanted to reprimand her, but at the same time, he remembered sleeping and waking and sleeping the night before – never comfortable – never resting – hoping that Hitomi wasn't feeling the cold that he felt with the extra blanket. And then it was warm and he slept.

He grabbed Hitomi's ever-obedient shoulder and pulled her back into bed. "She will serve you breakfast at eight o'clock, Allen. If that's not soon enough for you, then you should have made your own previsions. And you should have called us on the intercom system. It's extremely rude that you have appeared here."

Allen smirked like he was amused. "Sorry, I just wanted to see how much of the fairy tale was real." He pointed to the other mattress. It was obviously mussed. And with a flick of his hair, Allen strode out of the room.

"Does that bother you?" Hitomi asked sheepishly.

"The model or the mattress?" Van grimaced.

"Either one," she answered, turning her back on him.

"Both."

Van got out of the bed and paced around the room for a second to get his thoughts in line. "I'll take the mattresses downstairs and put them in front of the space heater, so that you won't have to do something like this tomorrow night. I should have got you a hot blanket or something. I apologize."

Hitomi looked at Van and said, "It wasn't that bad," like she was trying to understand how he felt.

Van shrugged his shoulders like he was trying to crack his neck. "Even so, I wasn't trying to manipulate the situation so that you would get in bed with me."

"I wasn't accusing you of that."

But Van wasn't convinced, and he was sure it was written all over his face.

"Listen," Hitomi said, getting up and coming towards him. "Let's just forget about what happened last night. I don't feel like you were taking advantage of me. If anything, I was taking advantage of you and besides – nothing happened. And I think we're close enough friends that we can just take that kind of accidental contact in stride and not let it affect us. Isn't not just me that feels that way, is it?"

"No. I feel that way too." The next thing Van knew, he was hugging Hitomi. With her head tucked under his chin he was breathing a bit of her short hair up his nose. He brushed it out and stroked her head at the same time. This was probably another example of the 'accidental contact' she had referred to.

It was true he had been ticked off at Allen barging in and seeing their state, but now Van couldn't even remember why. He only knew that for some reason, the wanker's appearance somehow made him closer with Hitomi … and he liked it.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. I love reviews! I don't have a beta reader, so there might be mistakes - please take them in stride. Blanket scenarios make me almost as happy as alley scenarios. This is the first time I've done this, so please forgive me. Love, Sapphirefly.  
_


	11. Chapter 11

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Eleven**

Gaddes had arranged for the crew to stay for three days and then leave on the fourth morning, but on the third morning, Van got word that they needed to take a break. The revised plan was to rest on the third day, work again on the fourth day – get the shot they needed – and then leave on the fifth morning.

Van gave Hitomi a little grin when he told her the new arrangement.

"Why are you so happy?" Hitomi asked suspiciously. "I didn't think you liked sleeping out in the hanger."

"I don't," Van explained. He was leaning against the kitchen counter as Hitomi prepared breakfast. "But they can't change their booking without a penalty and Gaddes knows how inconvenient their visit is. He's willing to pay the extra charges and he gave me an extremely large tip in cash to help ease the pain of their continued stay."

"It must have been a pretty big tip to make you smile like that."

"It was." He smiled again. "So, here's what I was thinking. You deserve a day off and one of us needs to drive into town to pick up another load of supplies, so why don't you take the pickup truck and go?"

Hitomi hesitated. Van had never offered her the vehicle before. "Uh," she stuttered. "You'll have to do a slight modification on my wrist band. I can't go as far away from you as town without changing the settings."

"I know," Van said, taking her arm in his and slipping a new information pack into her bracelet. The information pack was tiny, smaller than a memory card, but Van wasn't clumsy and got in it the right slot on his first try. When he was done, he let go of her hand and looked at the floor rather than at her face. Hitomi knew that look. It was the I-didn't-do-anything-inappropriate-to-you look.

She wanted to smack him up the backside of the head and rampage, 'I know you didn't do anything weird to me! Stop being so paranoid!' Instead she cooled her jets and said, "Thanks, but I don't understand why you want me to go. Wouldn't you rather I was here to see to our guests' needs?"

"They don't have any needs," Van said simply. "I'll make lunch for them and besides, you shouldn't take all day. Just drive out, pick up the stuff and come back. Oh, but be sure to stop by the café and have a snack. The drive is unbearable if there isn't something fun to do at the other end."

"This is really nice of you, Van."

"It's not as nice as I could be," he said – suddenly grouchy.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I should be offering you a portion of the tip I got from Gaddes, but…"

Hitomi knew what he was talking about. He was still worried about that twenty-thousand dollar debt. Hitomi smiled and got back to work. "Don't think about it. I already sold myself to you, so you don't have to pay me. You've already paid for all the work I have done and will ever do. The money is going to _my_ debt anyway, so don't worry about giving me anything extra."

Van shrugged his shoulders and gave her the passkey to the truck. "I've already called in the order, so they should have it all packed for you when you get there. Go after you eat your breakfast and I'll stay here and keep the hooligans at bay."

* * *

Hitomi opened the door to the truck and got in at the exact same time Allen got in on the other side.

Hitomi stared at his blond hair, tied neatly into a navy and white scarf. Her eyes moved to his strange blue tinted circular sunglasses and down his designer clad body. For a second she honestly couldn't process that he had got in the truck with her. There was a wobbliness in her legs that equaled the feeling she got when she stood face to face with a cow for the first time. She couldn't move.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

"Wherever you're going," he answered smoothly. "I have nothing to do today. I hoped you'd let me tag along."

"I think you should get out," she mumbled.

"I think you should let me stay," he said as he reached into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a money dispenser. "It's not like I expect you to take me for free. I'd be paying you."

When Hitomi was a teenager, she always thought Allen was the coolest when he flipped open his money dispenser. Back then, it seemed like a show of power. Now Hitomi felt the same way everyone he'd ever paid-off felt – disadvantaged. Hitomi hated him. He always made people do what he wanted.

She had a strong desire to throw him out of the vehicle. Van had already made it quite clear that even though the two of them were in business to do business, that didn't mean that they had to bend over every single time something was asked of them. Some requests were too much, and Hitomi knew that Van would consider this request way too much. Van would want her to get out of the truck and come get him. If that was what Van wanted her to do then why was she stalling?

There were two reasons. The first one was that there was a part of her that wanted to question Allen about her missing years and the second one was the money. The money they were trying to pay off was her money – not Van's. She wanted to do more to help pay it off.

Finally, she found her voice and asked quietly, "How much?"

"How much do you need?" Allen countered, amusement lingering in his tone.

"Twenty thousand dollars."

Allen whistled. "That's more than Van is charging for this whole trip and you want me to pay that much for a simple trip to town?"

"I thought you didn't know where I was going?"

"Gaddes told me. I wanted to get out of that stuffy house," he whined.

His calling the house she had slaved over and loved 'stuffy' was going too far. "You think town is any better? This place is a palace compared to anything there."

"Anyway, twenty thousand is too much. How about a hundred?"

"How about you get out of the truck and find your own way," Hitomi said stiffly. "You'd pay a shuttle in the city more than a hundred for the distance we've got to travel."

Frustrated, Allen scanned the dirt road in front of them. "Well, I don't see why I've got to pay you anything if I just refuse to get out of the truck."

Hitomi reached for her door handle. "Then I'll just get Van."

Allen grabbed her arm before she could get any further.

Hitomi's whole body convulsed with fear.

"Say, what's your relationship with that guy?"

"None of your business," she breathed and tried to push him off.

But he grabbed her other wrist and pulled her towards him. Hitomi could feel his breath on her from her ear to her collarbone, when suddenly Allen's door was opened. Van stood on the other side looking disgusted.

"I didn't know you wanted a trip to town, Allen," he said drolly, but from the deep red of his face, Hitomi could tell he was furious. "What are you doing?"

Allen took his hands off her and stepped out of the truck. "Nothing."

Hitomi looked at her bracelet. A light pink warning light was going off and on.

"Come here, Hitomi, and I'll turn it off for you," Van said kindly as he beckoned her towards him. She obediently went and with his thumb print on one of the links, the alarm stopped. "Allen, you shouldn't touch other people's property. I'll have to talk to Gaddes about your misconduct, since it seems you'd rather leave today than finish shooting your pictures tomorrow."

Allen tilted his head to the side, still trying to look cool as he was reprimanded by Van. "Obviously I shouldn't have touched her," he said condescendingly. Was that his version of an apology?

Van didn't say one word back to him; he simply took Hitomi by the wrist and led her back to the house. Hitomi's face was aflame as he neigh-on dragged her through the kitchen to the dining room. It was obvious from the way Van's hawk-like head scanned the west wing that he was looking for Gaddes, but since the room was empty except for the assistant and stylists, Hitomi had to be turned around and lugged back down the hall and into the south wing. She saw the stylists' little knowing smiles and wanted to die, but there was no point struggling against Van, so instead of digging in her heals, she flapped around behind him like a kite on a string.

The door to Gaddes' room, which was actually Van's room, was wide open. Van knocked twice on the door frame, but there was no answer.

Van groaned something inaudible that sounded like a plea for patience. Then he seemed to lose his temporary control and he practically spat, "Why did you let him touch you?"

Hitomi gasped in unbelief. "You think I _let _him touch me! Of all the …"

"What's going on out here?" Gaddes asked, suddenly emerging from the bathroom.

Van turned to him, and started talking all the while holding a death grip onto Hitomi's wrist. "We need to talk!"

Gaddes' head lolled back. "This is about Allen, I suppose. What has he done now?"

* * *

Two days later, Van stood on the helicopter pad back in town. He'd had to take his guests into town in two shifts and he was low on fuel, so he sent Gaddes and Allen into the town to see the sights until he was finished. Not that it took forever to refuel, but when Gaddes questioned Allen about his misbehavior towards Hitomi, the bastard wouldn't stop whining about how he truly wanted to see what the rural community was like and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and so as a consequence Van was forced to make a stop there.

When he wasn't even half finished filling the tank, Van saw Dilandau strut up to the side of the chopper.

Van took a deep breath and braced himself for whatever the old man would say. Inside, he was totally peeved. What was this, sleaze ball week?

Dilandau's white hair fell on his grey face as he stopped in front of Van and wheezed his breath. He didn't say 'hello' or anything like that and just launched into what he had to say. "Celly told me about your situation with your woman."

Van just looked at him like he was neither surprised nor interested in anything Dilandau might have to say. But a part of his brain flickered. He'd never heard Dilandau refer to Celena as Celly. It seemed too affectionate for the old coot and hearing it made Van feel weird. He should be angry or annoyed, because he liked Celena himself, but instead he felt … nothing.

"All I have to say is that a purchased woman who has a past before you is a tricky thing, but it's even worse if you don't know what kind of past it was. I know this guy," Dilandau started to say as he began rooting around in his grubby plaid shirt pockets. "He's a private investigator or something like that. He's resourceful. Last time I saw him he said something about memory recovery. Maybe you might want to get in touch with him." He finally found what he was looking for in his back butt pocket. It was a card that he handed over to Van.

Van took it and looked at it, but before he could read it, Dilandau was already half-limping away. "Hey!" Van shouted.

Dilandau turned.

"Thanks!" Van called, and maybe for one second he was grateful to Dilandau.

All Dilandau did was smile, but it was a twisted smile that seemed to say, "You _should_ thank me! You have no idea the trouble you're getting yourself into." But he didn't say anything and just kept on his way to his truck.

After that it was just the wind and the sun until Van finished filling up the tank. When he was done, he decided he'd go to the café, have a sandwich and ask Celena what she knew about this P.I. Dilandau was recommending. Then he'd go find Gaddes and Allen.

As Van approached the café, he saw Allen sitting on one of the bar stools in front of the counter and did a double take. Celena was standing over him. It looked like he was the only customer.

Immediately, Van changed his mind about going in the front door and instead circled around the building and went for the back door. It was locked, but he knew the key code from the days when he was dating Merle. After punching the numbers in, the door came loose and he went in. The kitchen was empty as he snuck around to the door that led into the dining room and stuck out his ear to hear what was said.

He didn't know why he was so suspicious of Allen. He just was. And well, maybe he didn't want him putting the moves on Celena. Maybe.

Then he heard Celena's voice – kind of tired sounding like always. She said, "I was thinking about you the other day on your birthday. Fessed up to being forty-six yet?"

"Shhh," Allen hissed.

There was a pause while Celena chuckled. "I'm not going to tell on you. Besides, it looks like your surgeries are going well. You look scarcely a day over thirty. You were always fearless that way. No knife could ever scare you."

"Well, aunt," Allen said like he had something stuck up his nose.

"Well nothing," she said, cutting him off. "I never thought I'd ever see you or any of your kind again as long as I lived, but since we have met again, I want to ask you one thing."

"What?"

"Did my husband really die when you all told me he did? I always thought it was the final ruse meant to get rid of me for good without killing me. Tell me, was he really dead?"

The air in the dining room seemed to weigh thousands of tons while Van waited for Allen to answer.

Finally, just when Van thought he wasn't going to, he said, "No. He wasn't, but it wasn't because he wanted to get rid of you."

"Oh, really?"

"He'd lost all his money again and he had like twenty loan sharks coming for his skin. He asked my father to put you to sleep so that you would be safe. He died nine years later. That was how long it took him to pay off the money. He wasn't quite back on top when he really did die." Here Allen paused. Then he continued talking like he hadn't. "Of a heart attack."

"Then you darlings sold my contract to Sleeping Beauty Inc.?" She clicked her tongue. "How much was I worth?"

Allen's voice became suave. "Who can judge a woman's worth?"

"I'm sure _you_ can," Celena said heartlessly.

"Well, enough about all that. You must know that none of that was up to me. Tell me about the man you're with now. Is he good to you?"

"And if he's not? Would you come help me out of it?"

"Certainly!"

Then Van heard the sound of a drink being poured. "Well," she said icily, "I won't hold my breath."

After that Van heard some insincere pandering to Celena, but he blocked it out and pulled out the business card Dilandau had given him. Dryden Fassa was the name on the card. Van decided then and there – he'd give the guy a call.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviews. I love reviews. They're like Christmas presents - so send me one (a review that is). Anywoo - I won't be uploading next Thursday. I'm a busy woman and I've got WORK to do. But I'll upload the week after that. It's a promise._


	12. Chapter 12

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 12**

There was a choking sound on the other end of the phone. Van rolled his eyes. It sounded like this Dryden guy had spurted a mouth full of coffee into the receiver.

"Wait a second. What did you say her name was?" the private investigator asked after he paused to wipe his mouth.

"Hitomi Kanzaki," Van replied with a heavy dose of patience.

The guy on the other end of the phone hooted. "That's tremendous!" he exclaimed with a howl. "I should come down there in person. What's your address?"

Van's dose of patience had already worn off. "Excuse me. Do you mind telling me what you're so excited about? If it's just because she once belonged to Allen Schezar and you think she might have an interesting story to tell a magazine editor, you'd be dead wrong. She's had her memory wiped."

When Van said that, the private investigator calmed right down. "Are you serious?"

"Of course. I'm calling you to see if you can help me fill in the blanks of her missing memory."

Dryden sucked in his breath. "Of all the stupid rat sh… Still, I'll come right down. What's your address?"

"Are you sure you'll be able to make it? It's quite far away from the city." Van stalled. He wasn't actually sure he could trust someone Dilandau had recommended before he made the call, and now that he'd talked to him, he still wasn't sure.

"Listen, I understand if you're getting cold feet about hiring me," Dryden said rationally. "But the reason I'm interested in Hitomi has nothing to do with selling the fabulous story of a purchased woman. It's because she's been part of a case I've been working on for years. I thought she was dead."

"Dead?"

"I'll be there by tonight. I'll meet you at Dilandau's house."

Then the line went dead.

Van clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and clicked the phone off. How could that maniac make it all the way to Dilandau's by evening?

Then he heard Hitomi calling him down the hall. It was time for lunch. He got up and strode down the hall. The kitchen was empty and it took him a second to realize she was in the conservatory pouring drinks for them.

There was a white rose bud behind one of her ears. The water in the crystal made a pattern of light across her cheeks and made her eyes sparkle.

Van's heart ached.

What had that monster done to her?

* * *

Van got in his truck in revved the engine. He'd already told Hitomi he was going to town to 'hang out with the guys'.

"Which guys?" she had asked reluctantly.

He knew he'd never done anything like this before, so he was honest. "Dilandau."

"Dilandau?" She laughed. She knew Van couldn't stand him. "Have a good time!"

Van smirked. "Don't you want to know why I'm going?" he called after her. She was already half up the stairs of her tower.

She leaned over the railing and said, "Not really. If it has to do with Dilandau, then that means you can't get out of it. Unless …" She drummed her fingers on the banister. "You're actually going to see Celena?"

That was when Van clued in to the idea that Hitomi might know about his past feelings for Celena.

Van had waved her off playfully, but now that he sat alone in the truck preparing for a bumpy drive to town, he hated himself. How had he given himself away? Was he really that obvious? Was that why Hitomi always seemed to regard him with unwavering plutonic friendship? Because she thought that his feelings were with a married woman? Damn.

When Van got to Dilandau's, Dilandau and another man were waiting outside the house.

Van shut off the engine and casually made his way over to them. The stranger was probably Dryden. Van mistrusted him on sight. His hair was too long. He hadn't shaved in well, maybe it was only since that morning – he did look like the type who got a ten o'clock shadow and then a two o'clock shadow long before five. Well, those weren't the only things. He didn't do up enough buttons on his shirt and he was smoking something vile in a pipe. He was exactly Dilandau's type of guy.

"Greetings," Dryden said cheerfully.

"Hi," Van said.

Dryden tapped out his pipe on an old salon-style hairdryer that was sitting in the yard and was about to say something when Dilandau suddenly roared, "Hey! I just got that for Celena."

"Oh," Dryden said, brushing the ashes off it. "I thought it was garbage." It was no wonder he would say that, considering the heaps of trash sticking through the untrimmed grass.

Dilandau disliked Dryden as much as he did, Van realized.

Dilandau scowled at both of them and indicated that they could come inside. Dryden sat at one end of the couch while Van sat on the other and Dilandau filled in his butt-print in his usual armchair.

"Before we begin, I should tell you that right now I'm acting as the employee of Mrs. Marlene Schezar."

"Who is she?"

"Allen's wife."

"Excuse me," Van snorted. "He's married?"

"Yeah, it was one of the biggest weddings in celebrity history. Back when she married him she was not only an honest-to-goodness princess, daughter of a king and everything, but she was also a very accomplished clothing designer."

"What happened?"

Dryden took out his phone and projected a series of images onto the wall over the television. They were pictures of Allen and an extremely stunning woman in a white wedding gown. Van had seen her picture before, but he didn't know her name or that she was a princess.

"Why would a princess want to marry him?"

"The Schezar family is rich. They are rich beyond your wildest dreams and actually also the wildest dreams of the Aston family. Marlene was married to Allen for the sake of money, but she did not know that that money was drenched in blood." Dryden continued. "They were married for about three weeks before she realized that there was something wrong with him. I mean something more than multiple surgical procedures – something worse. By the end of the first three months, she refused to live with him and now they are considered by the public as permanently separated. He simply won't sign for a divorce. Besides, at this point, there's little point in pursuing one."

"Why?" Van asked breezily. "If she dislikes him so much?"

"She's dying," Dryden admitted gravely.

Van's mouth hung open in silence.

Dryden continued. "She believes that Allen married her just so that he could become a prince. What is not commonly known is that three months into their marriage she was diagnosed with M.T.N."

Van's throat tightened at the mention of the illness. It was completely incurable. Someone diagnosed with it could not hope to live for longer than four years. Many people died much sooner than that if they didn't have proper treatment. Van had seen it. Hair gone, limbs hanging on by threads – a patient lay blindfolded and crumbling at the end. Both his parents had died that way. But, the disease didn't fly across the air. You had to get it from something.

Dryden cleared his throat and went on, "Marlene believes that Allen deliberately infected her with it."

Van turned his head away. "No one is that cruel."

"Well, she doesn't believe this without reason. The Schezar family hasn't exactly treated their women with equality in the past. Allen's aunt was put into cryostasis repeatedly for absolutely no reason, other than to get her out of the way from time to time."

"No one would do that either."

"Yes, they would. Why don't you just ask Celena?"

Van twitched. He wasn't thinking. That was right. He overheard Allen and Celena talking the other day in the café. Allen had said she was his aunt.

"So, even though there is loads of criminal evidence against other members of the Schezar family – Allen is clean. The reason Marlene wants to find Hitomi is because she's sure that Hitomi knows all about Allen's past indiscretion. Otherwise, why would he pay her off?"

"What if she doesn't remember anything about that?" Van asked dryly.

"Well, there are two different ways of having a memory wiped. One is through brain damage. If it's done that way, then there's no way of recovering the information. Or there's another treatment that's based in hypnosis. They hypnotize a person and force them to close a door on a certain part of their life."

"How was Hitomi paid off?" Van asked, suddenly remembering his conversation with her about her financial transactions before she went into cryostasis. "If she was paid to keep Allen's secrets then why did she wipe her own memory and sell herself? Besides, she was actually in debt when I recovered her."

Dryden looked taken back. "Hmm," he said thoughtfully. "Then the only answer is that he didn't pay her off – he wiped her memory for her. If she didn't consent, we wouldn't know, would we? Her memory of that conversation is gone."

Van clenched his fists and couldn't speak for a second. He hadn't even considered the possibility that Allen would have done it for her to protect his closet full of skeletons.

"How could we prove that?" Dilandau interjected.

"We have to find out where she had her memory wipe done," Dryden said confidently, as he turned off his projector. "In the meantime, I'd like to talk to Hitomi. Will you allow that, Van? Even if she got her memory wiped, she may remember something that can help me put the pieces together and get a little justice for a princess."

"Sure," Van said, raking a hand through his hair.

"Good. Can you bring her to the café tomorrow?"

Van nodded.

* * *

Hitomi came out of the shower and looked at the clock. It was after ten and Van still wasn't home. Van had left her at home plenty of times to do tours and other flights to the city, but this was the first time he had been gone at night. Hitomi found herself very lonely. Even though Van slept at a completely different corner of the house, she really relied on his company.

She sat down in front of her dresser with the mirror over it and shook her towel off her head. She was just about to comb her hair when she noticed a little folded piece of white paper stuck between her lotion and her deodorant.

Flipping it open was a man's messy scrawl. 'Miss me?' it said.

Thinking it was from Van; she smiled wanly and thought it was strange. This was the first time he had ever left her a note. Normally, he would just come and talk to her. And when did he have a chance to get up to her room. He hardly ever came upstairs.

She set the note down on her dresser and went on combing her hair. Then she reached into one of her drawers and brought out a hairdryer. Another note was lying underneath it. Hitomi took it out and read it. 'I missed you,' it said.

Hitomi's eyes flicked around the room uneasily. The note wasn't from Van.

When she came into the room after Allen left, the first thing she did was strip the bed. She took all the bedding to the laundry room on the main floor. Then she took all the towels out, even the ones he hadn't used and had them washed too. Then she put new blankets on her bed and forgot that he had been staying in her room at all.

A shiver ran up her body and didn't leave out her elbows to her shoulders.

She needed to clean this room again.

After running downstairs to get her supplies, she started in on it. Her room consisted of a dresser with six drawers. Half of them were filled with clothing, the other half were filled had a few bags in them and her hairdryer. She shook out each piece of clothing and went through every single compartment in the bags. She found two more notes. One was in the front flap of her most used purse and the other was in the back pocket of a pair of her jeans.

When she found the one in her purse, she had to go through it and make sure that nothing was missing. It wasn't really that she had anything valuable. All her most important information was in her bracelet, but STILL! After examining it, nothing was missing, but she still felt violated.

The note from her jeans said, '90-342-9325-00-3432.' Hitomi knew it was his phone number. It was the same number from when she spied it in his father's address book when she was seventeen. That number was intended for family use only.

The note in her purse said, 'Did you find the money yet?'

But Hitomi didn't stop there. She still had a closet full of clothes to inspect.

By the end, after having looked in every nook and cranny, every toe of every shoe, every vase, and even in the light fixture – she found three more notes.

'Remember, I can get you out of this.'

'You don't have to stay a purchased woman.'

'I'm waiting…'

Hitomi laid them all out on the floor. She didn't know how to deal with this. Sure, Allen would probably never come back here. He'd wait for her to contact him, but this room was completely destroyed for her. How was she supposed to sleep here now with his fingerprints all over everything?

She felt like dying.

Just then she heard the door. Thank goodness! Van was home.

She gathered up the notes and went downstairs. Van had already gone to his room and shut the door. Hitomi tiptoed up to his door. She had a half a mind to knock and ask him if she could sleep with him that night – just because she couldn't sleep in her room now.

She raised her hand to do it when she remembered two things. The first one was that Van had gone to see Celena that night, and the second one was that there was a completely un-used-by-Allen bed in the spare room.

She opened the door and went in. She'd sleep in the spare room instead.

* * *

_Author's Notes: I have notes. And they're good notes too. _

_Thanks to everyone who reviews, sends me PMs and reads. I'm all out of wittiness.  
_


	13. Chapter 13

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Thirteen**

The next morning Van got up early. He couldn't sleep. He came into the kitchen and half expected to find Hitomi there making waffles like he had when they had had visitors, but today the kitchen was empty. Rather than waking Hitomi, Van considered making something for himself for breakfast, but discarded the idea. He wasn't hungry.

Instead, he put on a pair of work gloves and a jean jacket and went out to the garden. He pulled weeds until the sun heat up his black hair up like the asphalt. Then he heard his stomach growl. He needed to eat. He put away his tools and went back into the house.

Hitomi wasn't in the kitchen. It was almost ten. Van was surprised. Hitomi was usually up by then. Van's first thought was that she was probably sick. Van went up the tower and knocked on her door. No answer. He knocked again and again – nothing. Finally, he pushed the door open a crack and whispered, "Hitomi, are you okay?" No answer. Was she in the bathroom? He didn't hear the water running. He opened the door the rest of the way and saw that her bed was empty. It hadn't even been slept in. The bathroom door was wide open and she wasn't there either.

Van went back down the stairs and tore through the house. She wasn't in the kitchen, the front room or anywhere. This was ridiculous. She had to be somewhere. Her bracelet didn't let her leave the perimeter without his permission.

Van felt sick.

It was then that he remembered that he had changed her perimeter and she was now allowed to go as far as town. He also remembered that he hadn't even peeked in on her when he got home last night before he went to bed. Who knew where she was? She could have even left the night before and he wouldn't have even known.

He pulled out his pocket watch that corresponded with her bracelet and punched a few buttons. In a few moments a channel opened and he said into the watch, "Hitomi, where are you?"

"Van?" he heard her mumble. "I'm here. Stop yelling."

"I'm not yelling," Van said calmly, but he heard his voice booming through the hallway. Was that how much noise this function made? But, if he could hear her bracelet then that meant that she was still in the house. The noise was coming from the direction of his bedroom. Van started down the hall and looked in his room. It was empty.

"Hitomi," he said into his watch. The noise was deafening and it was coming from the spare room. Van turned off the function and opened the door.

There was Hitomi, lying on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed and her feet resting at the head. Her body was jostling slightly, almost like she was laughing, but it didn't take Van two minutes to realize that the annoyingly loud wristband wasn't what she was making her shake. Something was wrong.

"Why are you sleeping in here?" Van asked cautiously.

It was then that he noticed that Hitomi was rearranging some scraps of paper on the carpet. Her long fingers crumpled them and dropping them in turn. "I couldn't sleep in my room," she finally answered.

Van sat on the floor and picked up one of the pieces of paper. It said, 'Did you find the money yet?'

"What's this?"

"Allen left them for me – tucked in my drawers."

"What does he mean, 'Did you find the money yet?'"

Hitomi snatched it out of his grasp and crushed it between her palms with the other notes. "He's a pig," she said weakly.

Van stared at her strangely. She was acting weird. "He left all of those? Can I see them?"

"No," she said. "He would only poison your brain and make you feel as bad as he makes me feel."

"Why?"

"I think he wants to buy my contract from you."

Van fell back on his wrists and thought about that. "I won't sell you."

"I know. That man just creeps me out," she said, flipping onto her back and expressing her concerns more to the ceiling than Van.

It made Van resent the ceiling. "You know, Hitomi," he said, venting a little. "If you didn't belong to me, then you could deal with this on your own, but because you're mine – you have to let me in on your problem. Please, can you show me the notes he left you?"  
Hitomi gave them to him, clearly because she didn't think she had a choice when he put it that way. Van didn't like that, but took them and read them with a grave face.

"What money? If he wants to buy you, why do you have to find money?"

"I don't really get what he has in mind … exactly," Hitomi answered. "And I don't care. I don't want anything to do with that guy and I won't do what he wants. I am going to burn these and forget I ever saw them, just like I wish that I had never laid eyes on that sack of crap."

Van wanted to interrupt, but stayed silent, because what she went on to say was too interesting.

"Just think, Van. If I'd met you before I met him, don't you think I would have fallen in love with you on sight?"

"You would have?"

She wasn't listening. She was too exhausted. Now he could tell that she hadn't slept much that night. She had driven herself crazy looking at Allen's notes and wondering what they meant. She wasn't saying things she would normally say. "Do you think I would fall in love with you if I didn't have all these weird fears about being betrayed, about being sold again, about being abused?"

Van paused for a second. She was clearly so sleep deprived that talking to her about this now felt sort of like taking advantage of a drunken person, but if he didn't talk now, it would get harder to talk in the future. And then things would turn out just like one of those Asian dramas. He cleared his throat. "I don't think it matters _when_ you meet people. If you're going to love them, you'll love them whenever you meet them."

"Hmm." Hitomi turned her head and her green eyes met his brown ones. "I shouldn't be talking to you like this."

"It's against the rules?" Van asked.

"Sort of. If a Sleeping Beauty becomes too emotionally dependent on her owner so that she becomes a liability rather than an asset, then the owner may return her for a partial refund. Do you want to return me?"

"No." He laughed since she was clearly joking. "I was just thinking. I never read the rule book. I'm allowed to ask you to do anything, right?"

"You're not allowed to ask me to hurt myself or others. Dirty dishwater is the limit for how much I'm allowed to suffer, but I'm sure an owner could think of a million ways to be cruel to their woman if they put some effort into it. I'm sure that that's how it was when I was with Allen. You know, Van," she said quietly. "I don't love him anymore. All it took was one glance across the dining room and poof – I didn't love him anymore."

"That's good to hear, since I can't let you be with him anyway," Van said – relieved that she said something like that before he launched in on all the things he'd learned from Dryden the night before. "He's married, you know."

Hitomi turned onto her stomach and moved onto her knees. Scratching her bedhead, she mumbled, "That's just like him. I'll bet she's rich."

"Yeah."

"I'll bet she was beautiful, but now she looks like a washcloth that's been used too many times."

"Yeah."

"I'll bet he fools around on the side and she can't do anything about it and instead of getting ticked off – she just takes it."

"Maybe."

"I'll bet she used to love something about him, and now she can't remember what."

"Stop," Van said sternly. "Today I'm going to take you to town for breakfast. There's this guy I want you to meet. He's a private investigator who works for Allen's wife. He wants to talk to you about Allen."

"I don't think I have anything to tell him, and I don't want to get mixed up with any of Allen's messes. Yuck."

"What about me?"

Hitomi turned to him and looked at him quizzically.

"I want you to talk to him," Van said persuasively. "I want to find out what Allen did to you that made you so messed up."

Hitomi started laughing. "And why do you want to clear my head? What does it matter if I'm too messed up to trust you? I'll still do anything you ask. You bought me!"

Van crinkled up his forehead. "I hate that. I hate it when you say that and I hate it more when I have to order you to do something. Can't you see that something's wrong with you? We need to find out what that brat did to you, so that you can get over it. Right now, you're like a ghost that I pulled out of a coffin. Do you think I want to leave you like this?"

Hitomi stared at him.

"I want to help. I went to town last night to talk to that private investigator. You think I went to go see Celena? I didn't. I didn't see one hair of her head. She was somewhere with Merle. Or oh? You think I like Merle. I couldn't sort things out with her. We couldn't come to a compromise and my little crush on her step-mum didn't help things."

Hitomi's eyes were like street lamp rings turned sideways. "You're admitting that you liked Celena?"

"Why should I be ashamed of it? I didn't do anything wrong. I liked her - I didn't sleep with her." Van got to his feet. "I was only thinking of you when I went out last night."

Hitomi's cheeks were ruddy and Van's heart beat felt like a jackhammer while he waited for her to answer him. "Does that mean you like me?"

"Yeah, I like you. Actually, it's really more than that. Haven't you seen my feelings for you? Do you really think what's going on is friendship? But … I can't even ask you to like me back, because it would feel like an order to me. Get dressed and I'll drive us to town."

Van left the room and put his work gloves back on. He paused for a second to see if Hitomi would follow him out of the room, but he counted to ten and then twenty and she didn't come. His pride wouldn't let him wait forever. He went out to the yard and started digging a hole. He was planning on planting a cherry tree for her.

* * *

Hitomi sat in the spare bedroom after Van left and crawled back under the covers. She put the pillow over her head and breathed out of a crack between the pillow and the mattress. It had honestly never occurred to her that Van liked her, but she should have known.

What other owner in the world would cheerfully pay back a purchased woman's debt? No one. Anyone else would have whored her off in the form of renting her out until the money was paid off. Either that or he would just sell her for a profit as fast as he could and start again with someone new.

There were other things should have tipped her off, too. Van didn't go into town – hardly ever. If it wasn't to pick up clients, he'd always take her with him. She should have figured out that he was no longer roosting (or wishing to roost) outside Celena's door. All that Celena talk must have just been grieving her loss while he made new memories with Hitomi.

She pulled the pillow off her head. Did she like Van back?

When she first here, she had just been grateful that he wanted her as a permanent kind of employee rather than a sex toy. So, she got used to that idea. In her mind, she expected that one day he would want to marry someone. She assumed that the time they spent together now improving his place was a step in that direction – though not a step towards actually finding a woman. One day Van would want Hitomi to do the work of the place while letting his wife play hostess. Hitomi shuddered at the idea of listening to the shrill instructions of some picky outsider instead of Van's mellow requests. That had to mean that she had never really wanted him to get married.

That didn't mean that she wanted him herself and the idea of his falling in love with her had never cross her mind. But why else would a man help with the dishes if he wasn't interested in the woman he was helping?

Hitomi looked out the window at the open prairie. That was what the problem was. There were no women around here. Van probably had no intention of taking a wife aside from her. As much as Hitomi wanted to avoid the thought, he had probably bought her to be his girlfriend, without knowing whether she was right for him or not. He had been that desperate for someone to come live out here and he had the example of Dilandau and Celena to give him courage to do something a trifle unconventional. That was it. It was his unrequited love with Celena that made him buy her. And even though Hitomi was the cheapest model on the floor, Van had paid all the money he had to buy her.

This was a bad situation.

If it had been someone else, would he have fallen in love with her instead of Hitomi?

She shook her head and pushed herself off the edge of the bed. Even though Allen had tainted her room with his scum, she still had to get her clothes. Up the stairs she went. She picked her clothes and changed into them quickly. She didn't stop to check her hair or even put on another layer of deodorant. Van was waiting and she didn't want to make him wait any longer than she had to.

After all she could see him in the yard from her window in the tower. His back was to her and he was digging a hole.

And he looked pathetic.

He was heaving the dirt so sloppily he was getting it all over him, but that wasn't what made him look pitiable. It was his shoulders. Van had great shoulders – straight angles where they should be straight and rounded where they should have been too. Out in the real world, those shoulders would have been the undoing of countless women, but out here – they didn't count for much. The only person around to look at him adoringly was her – and it didn't matter how adorable he was – she didn't want to do it.

She flicked her chin towards the door against the sight of him when her brain said to her, 'Hitomi, he's lonely.'

She glanced out the window. He was indeed alone – probably more alone than anyone she had ever met before.

Since it was her own brain she could easily retort fiercely, 'It could have been anyone and he probably would have fallen in love with her.'

But her brain wouldn't let her have it her way. 'So?' it said. 'Can't you just count your lucky stars?'

"And when someone else comes along?" she asked out loud.

Her brain went silent. It couldn't respond to that. As a purchased woman, if he didn't also make her his wife, he could have her _and _a wife and there wouldn't be anything she could say about it.

It was better to play it safe.

She shrugged her shoulders and hopped down the stairs. She'd just forget Van had said anything and things would go back to the way they were before. Then her brain would stop going in circles and she could focus on the jobs he had for her to do around the house. At least the house wouldn't turn on her.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Isn't January the dreariest month of the year? I have no beta reader and tonight I'm a little worried that I've made a mistake. Thanks to everyone who reads and REVIEWS. I like reviews. _


	14. Chapter 14

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 14**

Dryden pulled away from Hitomi, frowned, crossed his arms and started pacing back and forth across the length of the café with determination.

Hitomi met Van's eyes across the table and mouthed behind her hand, "This is the guy who's going to sort out my past?"

Van took a deep breath and put his forehead into his clasped hands without answering her.

Hitomi laughed. She guessed he didn't think much more of this guy than she did.

Dryden stopped and stared at her with gawking eyes. "You think this is funny?" he asked crossly.

She looked at him levelly. "You're acting like a chicken."

"Excuse me?"

"That's right. You're acting like a literal chicken picking its way across the coop. Haven't you ever seen one?"

"No!" He was disgusted. Turning away, he said, "She's talking about chickens! And I'm in a state."

"What's wrong?" Celena said, coming up and touching his arm gently. Dilandau wasn't around, so she got away with it.

He whispered something in her ear. Celena glanced at Hitomi, nodded her head, and then she grabbed Dryden by the arm and ushered him into the back kitchen.

"This is utter rubbish," Hitomi said, picking up her flavor-packet orange juice by the lip and swishing it around to help the crystals dissolve. "How can he tell if I've ever been hypnotized by just asking me a few questions, making some weird drumming noises and looking into my eyes? It's stupid."

Van pushed his hair out of his face and withheld judgment. Hitomi could tell that he still wasn't better from their conversation before they came to the café. She was trying to act casual and confident, but she could tell that it wasn't helping him. He thought that what he felt now was real, and there was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise. She wanted to act strong during this ordeal, until his feelings stopped, but she was getting worn down.

It was meeting with the detective that worried her. She had definitely seen Princess Marlene before. Marlene had been to the house once for a special visit before Allen had bought Hitomi and Hitomi even had the chance to shake her hand. At that time, she didn't even know that their families were hoping to marry them off to each other. So, she didn't know anything else about the story.

The thing that made everything real to her was what Allen said that night that he told the story about Rose Red. He said that the queen sent Rose Red away to be killed. Rose Red survived and then when she returned to the kingdom, the queen was dead. Apparently, Allen had been talking about more real things than just stealing Van's money. The queen was Marlene and she was going to die, so Allen would be available again in the foreseeable future. He was saying that he and Hitomi could still have a happily-ever-after.

Except that Hitomi didn't want it.

A minute later, Celena came out of the kitchen alone and sat down at their table, next to Van and across from Hitomi.

"Dryden sends his apologies, but he says he's a private eye and not a doctor," Celena said quietly with her eyes fixed on Hitomi.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hitomi mocked.

Celena's hesitated. Her eyes looked a little wet and tired. Hitomi sat up straighter and forced herself to listen to what Celena had to say with respect instead of ridicule. For some reason it was easier for her to take Celena seriously than the man-whore with his shirt half-unbuttoned. "He says that there are only two ways to do a memory wipe. One of them is for the patient to be hypnotized. That way their memories might be able to be returned to them if they want it. Most people who get memory wipes on themselves get it done this way. The second way is to have your brain professionally damaged. He says that you're the type of person it's impossible to hypnotize."

Hitomi froze momentarily and gazed at Celena's hurt face. "It's okay," she said briskly. "I wasn't planning on getting those memories back anyway."

"You're not worried about what happened to you back then?" Van asked.

"Not really. When I woke up in Sleeping Beauty Inc. I decided that I wasn't going to worry about the kind of life I had and I'd only focus on the life I have." Hitomi involuntarily glanced at the little scarf wrapped around her bracelet. She wanted to take it off and let everyone in town, if not the world, know how things really were.

"Well, I am worried. I gave Dryden my full permission to excavate your whole past."

Hitomi shrugged her shoulders. "That's your business."

No one spoke and after a few minutes, Celena got up and went behind the counter to fill salt shakers. Van got out of the booth too and went into the kitchen, supposedly following Dryden to have a word with him or some other such nonsense. Hitomi sat in her seat and finding herself bored, started stacking the condiments on the table into a tower.

Then a man came into the shop. Hitomi knew it was Dilandau on sight – his shabby clothes, his unshaved face, the sickly look about his body like his ribcage was caving in. Hitomi had never spoken to him. He came in carrying some large grocery bags. He took them behind the counter and gave them to Celena.

"Better check them," he said gruffly. "Just to make sure I didn't forget anything."

Celena fingered through them and said gratefully, "You remembered everything I needed. Thanks for going." Then she planted a sweet little kiss on his scratchy cheek and went to go put the items in the kitchen.

Dilandau poured himself a cup of coffee and then he came around to the side of the bar that had stools and took a seat. Hitomi watched him pour more sugar into his cup than any human being had any right consuming, when suddenly he turned to her and started talking. "So, when are you and Van getting married?"

"We're not getting married," she said evenly.

"Why not? Hasn't he asked you?"

"That's right," she said slowly. "He hasn't asked me."

Dilandau took a sip from his cup. "Well, there's nothing like a woman asking you to turn your life around." Then he got up and followed Celena into the kitchen.

Hitomi was dumbfounded. She couldn't even sigh, but it got her thinking.

* * *

Two days later, Van sat in his bedroom. It was past midnight and he was up looking at his phone because he couldn't sleep. He hadn't expected to have any messages, but he had been out doing flights and hadn't checked for a while. There was a message from Sleeping Beauty Inc. offering to repurchase Hitomi for twice what Van paid for her. He replied immediately, saying that he had no desire to sell her, but still he was surprised. Don't get him wrong, he wasn't surprised by the message. He had been waiting for it for quite some time. The thing that surprised him was the amount. Allen had paid thirteen-hundred-thousand for her the first time he bought her and now she was only worth a little over four-hundred-thousand? It was astonishing.

The other thing on his mind was Hitomi herself. She had moved all her belongings into the spare bedroom and given up on the tower entirely. She told him that she had thrown away all the notes Allen left for her in her room, so he couldn't see them. AND … she'd been avoiding him at all costs.

If he had known that it would make her this uncomfortable to know how he felt about her, he would have kept it to himself. He wanted to make her feel better, but she wouldn't talk to him, so he didn't even know exactly what was wrong. What did she want?

One thing was for certain. He couldn't go on like this, so he had been arranging and rearranging battle plans. The most sensible one he had come up with was to give her the papers that he had to sign to set her free and then give her an engagement ring in the same breath. But if she didn't want to be with him then she'd just take the papers and leave. Van couldn't even think about doing that until the debt was paid.

The rashest plan he'd made was just to grab her in the hall and kiss her. It was a gamble, because then she could say that she had to do whatever he wanted.

Van was just about to throw down his phone in frustration when a new message appeared. It was from Dryden. Van clicked on it. It read:

"Thanks for giving me clearance to check Hitomi out in more detail. What I knew about her before you gave me access was miniscule compared to what I know now. She was in the hospital three times in the nine months that she belonged to him. Once for a broken wrist, once for what looks like an all-out beating, and once for a sprained ankle (she was pushed down a flight of stairs). She also did a lot of travelling without him to some pretty strange countries. Some of which have been known to have illegal M.T.N. operations. She may have been asked to transport samples of the disease for him, which could be why he wanted her memory wiped. I'll let you know if I find out anything else in a few days.

-Dryden"

Van ground his teeth together angrily. So, that bastard had forced her to transport dangerous diseases as well as beat her? Van got up and vented, but he didn't want Hitomi to hear so he clamped his teeth together and just sort of hummed all the awful things he wanted to say about Allen while walking a hole in the floor.

Then a knock came at the door.

"Yes," Van said, forcing himself to calm down.

Hitomi opened the door a crack and put her face in. "What are you doing?"

"I'm always like this," Van said. He moved to lean his arm on the dresser, missed and had to catch himself from falling on the floor. He brought himself upright and brushed off his shirt to help him gain his composure. "You just didn't notice because you were always up in the tower. Speaking of which," he said, noting her bare legs. "What can we do to make the tower habitable for you again?"

"Is it making you uncomfortable for me to sleep down here?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" he said, trying desperately to hide the true reason. That having her up in the tower made him feel like she was on the moon, but having her in the next room made her feel too close. And he couldn't touch her. So he went on with his lie. "I don't want you to hear me talking to myself."

She scrunched up her nose.

Van didn't usually talk to himself, but any excuse would do. "Before you came, I lived here alone for six years."

"Six years!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah," he said calmly, sitting down on the bed. "Didn't I ever tell you?"

Hitomi opened the door the rest of the way and came in. Sitting down on the bed too, she said, "No, you didn't."

Van didn't normally talk about this. It was mostly because there was no need to. The people he knew in town knew what had happened. They had been there for it. They had worked in the hospital, seen him around town, and gone to the funerals. Everyone knew. And since they knew, it wasn't often that he had to talk about it. It was like everyone knew that he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't have to talk about it. No one wanted to assume the responsibility for opening his wounds if they couldn't help him anyway, and of course they couldn't.

Now at this moment, he considered that he may as well tell Hitomi what happened. Telling her would make her the first person he had told since he spoke to the gent at the crematorium.

"My brother left home when I was a kid. He hasn't been back here. I haven't heard from him in years and I'll be surprised if he ever comes back. My mom contracted M.T.N. when I was sixteen. After that, she could only live with us for about six months before we had to take her to the hospital for continued treatment. My father got it when I was nineteen, about two months before my mother died. The nurse at the hospital told me that he wouldn't follow hospital regulations and he wouldn't stop taking off his rubber glove to hold her hand. You know, skin on skin." Van didn't look at Hitomi while he spoke. He didn't know how she would take such information or if he wanted to see how she took it. He kept his face down as he continued. "My father died when I was twenty one. The disease took him a lot faster. He didn't try very hard once my mother was gone, and it's not like I was a baby, so …"

Van stopped talking. Hitomi had slid her hand under his. Van couldn't believe his eyes. It wasn't like they had never touched. She had stretched her legs across his knees before and he had rubbed her shoulders, but those sorts of contact always felt like the mildest form of flirting – not like love. This touch now felt different. She must love him. Something was just holding her back.

Suddenly, he grasped her hand tightly and Hitomi tried to pull back, but he held on.

"Pretend I don't own you," he said, looking into her eyes. "Pretend you don't have to do what I say. Pretend you could walk out tonight if you wanted to and I wouldn't do anything to stop you. If all that were true, would you leave?"

Hitomi bit her lip hesitantly. "As far as I know, my father still lives on the Schezar family estate. I can never go home."

"Pretend you could."

"I'm not trained to do anything."

"Pretend you are."

He was wearing her down. He could see it in her eyes.

Then it came out of her like a sprinkler that wouldn't work suddenly coming on. "You could have bought anyone and you would have fallen in love with her! Anyone! I'm not special."

"You think that the fact that I bought you makes you ordinary? I had a choice. I could have picked another girl. I was even advised against buying you by the consultant. She said you were damaged, but I … I didn't care."

She was sniffling slightly now, but he wouldn't let go of her hand and he wouldn't stop talking.

"Come on, I didn't buy you to be an object to me. And tomorrow I'm going to sell part of Escaflowne to pay your debt and get some more money so that I can renovate your room to get the Allen stink out of it. Until you came Escaflowne was the most important thing in the world to me. Now, you're all that matters."

"You're holding me too hard," she whimpered.

Van eased up, but he had one more thing to add, so he didn't let her go. "To say that it was love at first sight was going too far, but I liked you when I chose you. I took the time to get to know you without pressuring and now I know I love you."

"But what if you don't feel that way forever and you marry someone else?"

Van stared. This was what she had been worrying about! "I would never marry someone else."

Hitomi gently peeled his fingers off her hand. Her breathing was coarse. "This is too much for today. I have to go away and think about what you've said."

Van nodded and let her go.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviews, but ya know - because of the low review count last time I'm gonna have to assume that you guys prefer action/intrigue rather than lovelovelovelove. Anyhoo - have a great day everyone and remember to review. I like reviews. _


	15. Chapter 15

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 15**

The next morning, Hitomi got out of bed, pulled a plaid shirt over top of her white tank top and went into the kitchen. It was empty. She got out her muffin tins and made blueberry muffins in the shape of stars. While they were cooking, she poked her head in the fridge to see what she could make to drink. Most times they just drank water for breakfast when there weren't any guests around to want something better. Besides, it was good for the skin.

When she poked her head into the second crisper, she found a bag of oranges that hadn't even been taken out of the shopping bag yet. Hitomi gaped. She could hardly remember the last time she'd had real oranges. Opening the bag, she found a plastic juicer inside. These had to be for her. It wasn't on their menu to serve real orange … anything.

Whipping out a knife, she immediately started cutting and squeezing and pouring and smiling.

After she'd squeezed two or three, she saw that her wristband was blinking. There was a message from Van that he had gone to the city and would be back later.

Hitomi felt slightly deflated. Now he wasn't going to be here for the fresh orange juice, or the muffins. He was going to town to sell that helicopter part he told her about the night before. She had been thinking of convincing him not to do it when they had breakfast, but he had already gone ahead. Now there was nothing she could do.

She finished squeezing the juice and put some in the fridge for Van when he came back. Then she took the muffins out of the oven and arranged a tray of food to take into the conservatory. Even though the room was a drafty nightmare in the winter, now that summer had come, the place was like paradise and smelled like roses. Now, she always wanted to eat every meal there.

As she ate, she made a little mental list of the things that needed to be done that day. Thing number one was to water the plants in the conservatory and then the garden. Then she could go into the house, tidy up the mess she'd made at breakfast and make lunch. Hopefully, Van would be back by then.

She got her watering can and poured water from one of the rain barrels into it. Then she began her rounds. In the conservatory, she noticed that Van had planted all the empty spaces with strawberries. In the garden, she noticed the new cherry tree. Though, she didn't know it was a cherry tree on sight and had to look it up on her wristband. The information page said it was supposed to be able to grow cherries the size of golf balls, but she didn't know if it would be able to with their weather.

While she watered the giant clumps of daisies, something caught her eye in the window of Van's bathroom. Something moved. She looked out at the hanger to see if Van had come home. The pickup truck was gone and the hanger doors were closed, an undeniable sign that Van had come home, but still … she was edgy. She couldn't see inside the window from that distance, especially with the sunlight reflecting across the glass, so she went in for a closer look. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she stuck her face right up to the window and peered inside, thinking that she wouldn't be able to see anything.

Inside, she saw a man standing with his back to the window and a towel wrapped around his waist. He was facing the mirror and shaving. His black wet hair was dripping on his shoulders and down his back.

Hitomi backed away, nursing her embarrassment. She reasoned that she hadn't seen anything. There was nothing to be ashamed of. But what was she thinking going up to Van's bathroom window and taking a look inside? Who or what was she afraid to find? She sighed. She looked because she was terrified that Allen had come back while Van was gone. She was just trying to confirm that it really was Van. Even if that was her reason, it didn't soothe the shame swirling within her. Besides, she told herself, it wasn't like she hadn't seen Van without his shirt before. He always had a great back, tanned and smooth, she reflected grimly. It was always there, under his clothes.

Hitomi put her hand to her forehead. Things were getting out of control.

Then Hitomi saw a vehicle coming down their road. The trail of dirt and dust it made couldn't be missed. It came down their driveway and came to a halt in front of their door. Hitomi walked around the house and met it.

Dryden got out of the drivers' seat and came around to talk to her. "Where's Van?" he asked shortly.

"In the bath," she answered.

"Get him out," Dryden said briskly. "I need to talk to him right now."

"Okay," Hitomi said hesitantly before she led him into the house.

After leaving Dryden agitated and too frustrated to even sit, she went to Van's bedroom and knocked on the door. No answer. She opened the door and went in. It wasn't like he hadn't stormed in on her when she was grooming before.

Knock. Knock.

He opened the door and came out. The towel he was wearing was gone and instead he was wearing a pair of black boxer-briefs.

"What is it?" he asked as he towel dried his hair – looking completely unruffled. Was he really? She remembered his awkwardness when he caught her shaving her legs. There was no way he felt as calm as he looked, but there was no time to confirm it now.

"Dryden's here," she said breathlessly. "He wants to talk to you."

Van looked surprised. "Tell him I'll get dressed and come out."

Hitomi ducked her head and moved to leave when Van suddenly grabbed her arm. "You look pink. Does seeing me like this make you nervous?"

"Nope," she lied, but she couldn't help evading her eyes by looking over Van's head.

He smirked in an awfully jerkish way that Hitomi unfortunately found adorable and then let her go.

"Please get him a glass of ice water while he waits," he said briskly. "I might be longer than a minute."

Hitomi went out and did what she was told.

Dryden looked like he was going to have a hissy fit right there in the living room. She handed him his water. "Thanks," he said, as he took out the ice cubes and crunched them furiously. When they were gone and Van still hadn't come out, he poured the rest of the liquid over his head with absolutely no regard for whether or not he splashed the furniture or soaked the carpet.

"Ah! Refreshing," Dryden said – obviously still aggravated.

Hitomi grunted. Then she took Dryden's glass and went into the kitchen to get a towel to clean up the mess when she saw Van pass on his way into the dining room.

Van didn't even have a chance to speak before Dryden lit in on him. Hitomi could hear him all the way in the kitchen. "Why didn't you tell me that Folken Fanel was your brother? It would have made things a lot simpler."

"What are you talking about?" Van asked. "Yeah, he's my brother, but I don't even know where he is right now. He's been out of touch with my family for over a decade."

"So, you had no idea that he works for Mr. Schezar Sr. then?" Dryden asked angrily.

"No, I didn't." Van was defensive.

Hitomi ducked her head and took up a perch beside the open door, so that she could hear what they were saying. She knew Folken. He was Mr. Schezar's helicopter pilot. Hitomi had seen him hundreds of times, but she and her father didn't have anything to do with him. He was one of the highest ranking people on staff and he was really well paid. Hitomi had seen him dining with at the Schezar table more than once. Was that guy really Van's brother?

"You're a helicopter pilot, right?" Dryden asked, sitting down on one of the sofas. "Have you ever done research on helicopters owned by famous people?"

"Why would I do something like that?" Van answered briskly.

"Because the one owned by Allen's family is remarkable. It's not powered by natural gas or an electric battery cells or anything normal. It's powered by what they call an energist. It can run for a sixteen hour flight without needing to touch down and then it only needs to rest for two hours before doing it all over again. Have you ever heard of anything like that before?"

"Mmhmm," Van hummed disinterestedly. After seeing Escaflowne in the floor of his basement, she thought that he would be more than interested in new helicopter technology, but he sounded bored to death. "Let me guess," he said after a minute. "Folken has been trying to make a new one and he's failed."

"Yeah," Dryden answered, astounded. "How did you know that?"

"Wild guess," Van said, sounding even more bored than before. "You see, my father invented the energist and when Folken left home, he took the only one my father had with him. When you put all those pieces together, it sounds like the photo shoot may have just been a ruse to get Allen up here to see if my father had another one. I mean, I know the scenery up here is fantastic, but nothing that can't be artificially generated."

"Was Allen prowling around your hanger?"

Hitomi thought about it. Allen _was_ in the hanger! He came in one morning and woke them up. Had he looked for the energist when he was there?

Van sounded cool. "He was in there, but he wouldn't have found anything."

"Why not?"

"I already told you. My father only made one and Folken stole it."

Dryden sounded surprised at Van's tone. "Aren't you angry?"

"Sorry. It's hard to rake up any enthusiasm. All that happened a long time ago. My father never talked to me about it, but I think he was sorrier to lose Folken than the energist. Eventually, he stopped making helicopters and as far as I know, he's taken his secret on how to make the energists to his grave."

"He never told you about it?"

"Nope, but if that's what Allen and Gaddes really came for that time, then it would have been better if they'd just asked for it directly rather than …" Van spoke like he was coming to a realization. "… trying to get Hitomi to look for it. For Pete's sake! Do you know how many requests I have had from Sleeping Beauty Inc. to sell her back to them? Like twenty. First they were only doubling how much they would pay for her, and now the cost is getting into the millions. It's idiotic. I've stopped answering them. Should we just contact Allen and tell him that I don't have another bloody energist?"

Dryden sounded weary. "If only they would believe you."

"They wouldn't?"

"Those people live and breathe lies. They lie so often, they can't even imagine that someone else could be telling the truth. What worries me is that they may have just been coming here to get a feel for the place so they would know what the risks were for when they came back. Not everything can be figured out by satellite."

"Listen, I know my father's work. I have practically lived my whole life in his garage. There is nothing even hinting about the construction of an energist. There are no plans, no notes, and no strange material that doesn't have a place – nothing. Believe me; I've looked. If they rip the place to pieces they won't find anything. So, what do I have to do to stop them from getting excited?"

"I don't know. Let me think." A couple minutes passed where the only thing Hitomi heard were Dryden's footsteps as he beat down on the carpet. "Okay," he said, stopping abruptly. "Solution number one – you make up some greyprints and tell them that they were your father's plans and hand them over to Allen with great reluctance when he shows up. But that will only buy you time once they try them out and realize that they aren't your father's because they don't work. Solution number two – you ditch this place for a while and let them ransack it. But they will probably think that you took the energist with you and come after you. Solution number three – you sell Hitomi back to Allen."

Van interrupted. "Why the Hell would I do that?"

"I think they'll send her back to you," Dryden said patiently.

"What do you mean?"

Dryden sniffed. "I think if you sell her, she'll come back a week later saying that she ran away from Allen and wants to be with you. In the time she's gone they will have briefed her on what exactly she's supposed to find. Then when she reports that she can't find it, they'll snatch her back."

"What a crappy idea! It doesn't even make sense because of the Sleeping Beauty proximity regulations, but whatever. I'm not selling Hitomi."

"I'm not saying that it would be forever. I'm just saying that it would be a fast way to prove what they are really up to. Not just with this issue that has just come up, but with Princess Marlene too. If they got her to smuggle diseases once, then maybe they'll ask her to do it again. Then we could get proof."

Hitomi's heart was up in her throat as she listened.

"Look, I'd really like to help you with Princess Marlene's case. I'm doing my best, but you can't ask me to send Hitomi back to Allen. I won't sell her."

"All right, but just to warn you – if you don't fork Hitomi over to him, he'll probably go after Celena to do his dirty work," Dryden said darkly. "If you don't sell, I'll wager that Celena will be here poking around in two shakes."

There was a moment before Van answered. "Does Dilandau know that?"

"No. How can he know that when we've only pieced this together now? Do you think he'd be able to resist millions upon millions of dollars for Celena? Or do you think he'd be tough like you and refuse?"

Van was silent.

"Just to let you know, they'll probably let their bid get pretty high up there before they change to Celena. It's not that Hitomi herself is valuable. It's that the energist technology is so valuable that once they figure out how to make them, the price for her will seem like pocket change. This is the kind of scheme that has made the Schezar family its money."

"Are you going?" Van asked as one of the couches creaked.

"Yeah. I want to go talk to Dilandau, but I should probably warn you. They may also ask to rent her. You can think about whether or not you want to allow that."

"Renting her out is just as bad."

"Well, if we don't give them an avenue where they think they're getting what they want, they may get violent."

"I know, but I'm being honest. My father took whatever he knew to his grave."

"And so will Hitomi," Dryden said ominously, "unless we do something about it. Later, Van."

Hitomi bolted and hid behind the counter in the kitchen just as Van and Dryden passed her. She had to think about this too.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks for everyone who reads and everyone who reviews. There were quite a lot of you for the last chapter. Thank you all for your superb comments. But I have to compliment you because I don't think I have ever had an audience so open to intrigue. Thanks. I feel much freer. I've also decided not to host a forum because all my past forums got wiped out with no explanation (even though I emailed support). If you want to ask me a question, please do so in your review, and I'll PM you back. It's a promise. LOVE!_


	16. Chapter 16

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 16**

Van sat around and stewed about what Dryden said after he left. Truthfully, he didn't want to send Celena back to the Schezar family any more than he wanted to send Hitomi. He could tell that Celena was working her way into Dilandau's heart, but that didn't mean that Dilandau was willing to bypass millions of dollars to keep her for himself. If Van wanted to keep Celena out of harm's way, he'd have to do something with Hitomi, which Van simply wasn't willing to do.

That night, as Hitomi lay Van's supper in front of him she suddenly said, "I want to tell you that I overheard what you and Dryden were talking about."

"Oh?" Van said casually.

"Yeah," she said, sitting down across from him. "Thanks for saying that you'd never sell me. I was really touched."

Van sniffed. "I just keep doing things to make you fall for me. Are they working?" he asked grimly.

Hitomi was quiet for a minute, during which Van just assumed that she wouldn't answer and started eating. Finally she said, "It's not _not_ working."

He paused relaying his casserole. "Do you mean that?"

She nodded. The motion looked painful, like she was so shy that it was killing her just to move her head a few inches.

"Well," he said, getting a bit of his sense of humour back. "If you love me that much, then I guess you could give me a little kiss."

Hitomi looked horrified.

"On the cheek," he amended.

He waited, but she didn't move, so he shrugged his shoulders and kept eating.

That night, Van was lying in bed typing out a stop order to Sleeping Beauty Inc. They weren't supposed to send him any more offers of purchase for Hitomi. He wrote that he had decided to keep her.

Then there was a tap at his door. "Come in," he called. Then he looked up to smile at darling Hitomi in her plaid night shirt.

She came across the room with angry footsteps like she was in a bit of a temper. Marching right up to him, she stooped down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He grabbed her arm and pulled her down, so she was sitting on the bed. Looking deep into her eyes, he asked, "You did that all by yourself?"

She nodded, but still, she looked like she was suffering.

"Did you mean it?"

"U-huh," she whispered. "I'm nervous, and I'm scared that I won't be any good at this sort of thing. I mean, they have a class on this stuff at Sleeping Beauty Inc., but it really felt like it was more like, for when you really don't want to, but it's too late to say no."

Van tilted his head and asked kindly, "Do you feel like saying no?"

"No."

"Good." Van leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, muffling whatever Hitomi was about to say next. He wasn't sure how it was going until she put her free hand behind his neck and then he left all thoughts of quitting behind, and actually kissed her the way he wanted to. Kissing her, he felt all worries leave his brain. There was nothing left except how perfect this felt with her. It had never felt this perfect with someone else. He felt charged. This was heaven. This was right now.

He pushed her back on the bed.

"Van! We've got to stop." Hitomi had turned her head to the side so that her mouth was inaccessible.

"Why?" He turned her face back to him.

"Because, this doesn't feel right," she said, pushing him off her.

She got up off the bed, but Van grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him. "What do you mean, it doesn't feel right? It feels perfect to me."

"Of course it does," she whined, fighting against his hand. "I think you should sell me back to Allen."

Van was crushed, but he took the feeling in hand and pulled down on Hitomi even harder. "Why?" he yelled angrily, his eyebrows pulled together. "Do you love him? Do you want to be back with him?"

"No!" she gasped, still trying to break free from her.

"Then why?" he growled – his voice becoming far angrier than he meant it to.

"Because," she cried, "I think those guys might have infected your mom with M.T.N. on purpose."

Van let go of her and stared. "What?"

Hitomi laid out her free hand in front of her in a gesture of ignorance. "I have no idea why I think that. I just got to thinking after you and Dryden talked and after I heard Folken's name, that idea popped into my head. I wanted to tell you what I thought at dinner tonight, but I didn't have the nerve. It's just that I remember Folken. I hadn't remembered him in ages, but he worked for Allen's dad. He was practically one of the Schezar family."

Van stared. Nothing like that had ever entered into his wildest dreams. His brother did … what? He didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it. He hardly remembered his brother, but no brother of his could be capable of something like that. Think these things as hard as he might, he couldn't make his mouth say one word to defend Folken.

Instead he said, "None of that matters. The only thing that does matter is that I won't sell you to them and tomorrow – if you're willing – I think we should get married in town."

Hitomi didn't answer his marriage proposal. Instead, she matched all his anger and said, "You don't understand. If they were willing to kill your parents, they really won't have any scruple coming after you. If I go to them—"

"No," Van interrupted. "It won't make a difference. I don't have the technology. It's not here. I've looked everywhere."

"Your dad wouldn't have torched it. It's got to be here somewhere."

"Then look. I dare you," Van said, throwing her hand away and rolling over on the bed to signal the end of their conversation.

"Fine," Hitomi shouted. "I will."

Van scowled. She said that as she left the room.

What was he supposed to do now? He didn't care about the energist or the plans to make one. He just wanted to be together with Hitomi. He picked up his watch and set her perimeter to allow her to go no further than the hanger. At the very least, he wanted to sleep soundly that night.

Hitomi yawned in the kitchen at three a.m. She originally came into the kitchen with the idea of making some more orange juice, but abandoned the idea as soon as she realized she could just slice it and stuff the slices in her mouth. Mercy, she was tired.

Van had just gone to bed while she searched the house, looking for some hint about the energists. It wasn't that she didn't believe that Van couldn't find them. She believed him. She just thought that maybe his father had hidden them somewhere in the house – not anywhere visible. They had already remade this house from top to bottom. She was thinking that there might be a trap door under the floor, so she stomped everywhere looking for a hollow sound. Nothing! Then she started banging on the walls. It really was a wonder Van didn't come out and bite her head off, but he didn't budge from his bed.

* * *

Now it was three a.m. and she hadn't found a clue, but she couldn't discount the feeling she had in her heart. There was something in her head that told her that something was wrong. Once she had known what it was, but now her brain hit a wall when she tried to think of it.

Van mentioned marriage, but it was hard for her to think of it when she had this weight on her chest. She had done something wrong. Something was wrong, and she couldn't think of anything except the horror that surrounded her heart whenever it was that she stopped to think.

She ate the rest of her orange and went to bed in the spare room. She wanted to wait for daylight before she went to look in the basement of the hanger.

* * *

The next morning, Van was standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of water and looking out the window at the trees arching in the wind. Not only had Hitomi kept him up half the night with illogical banging, but looking outside, he had a sense of foreboding. Today wasn't a good day to get married. Today was the kind of day you stayed at home and waited for the storm to pass.

Yet, even with wind blowing the grass and the dirt about, a truck came and parked in front of the house.

Van knew that truck, but he couldn't have been more surprised when the owner of it got out and knocked on the door. It was Dilandau. When Van opened the door for him, his white hair was blowing so that it almost stood straight up. It was his face that surprised Van. He hadn't seen Dilandau look that young and alive in years.

Van brought him inside and shut the door hard behind him. "What brings you out here on such a day?"

Dilandau smoothed down his hair and tried to adjust his clothes. "I didn't believe it when Dryden told me, but last night – it finally happened."

"What happened?"

"I got a request from Sleeping Beauty Inc. to sell Celena back to them," he said, beaming.

"Bloody Hell," Van groaned. That explained why the old codger looked so freaking pleased with himself. "You aren't going to sell her, are you?"

Dilandau looked appalled for a second before he whacked Van up the backside of the head. "I'm not going to sell her. Dolt!" he added grouchily. "If I'd known you'd be such a moron about this, I wouldn't have bothered to drive out to tell you." He put his hands on his still country boy hips and paced.

Van quieted down and then asked sincerely, "Really? How much did they offer you?"

"More than I made all the years of my life combined, but you know, when I saw it laid out like that … it just didn't look worth it to me."

Van was stunned.

Dilandau looked around at all the renovations Van and Hitomi had done. "This is what your woman did to the place when she came?" He whistled. "Merle never would have thought of all this." He looked at Van for a second and for that second, Van thought he could read what Dilandau was thinking. It went something like, good thing you didn't take my daughter. Then the old man broke eye contact and said, "I should shove off. I just wanted you to know that I'm not going to cell Celena. I've never had the chance to do something to show a woman that I … felt something for her. I should do at least one thing right in my life. See ya."

Van felt a sting of relief as Dilandau walked out the door into that wall of wind. Van hoped the man would do well and keep to his plan.

And he had to keep to his own plan. He got his tools and went up to the tower to pull up the carpet so he could redo the tower for Hitomi. If he couldn't marry her today, he could keep another part of his promise.

* * *

When Hitomi woke up, she woke up to the sound of Van working up in the tower. It was ironic and cute. So, she rolled out of bed and dragged herself (plaid shirt and boxer shorts) up to see what he was doing. He didn't see her at the door, but one look at the ripped up room told her that wherever Van's father had hid the plans, he hadn't hid them in the tower.

She went downstairs to the kitchen and tried to eat something, but honestly, her stomach felt like retching whenever she put a piece of food to her mouth, whether it be bread or water. She had to keep looking for a hint from Van's father. There had to be one somewhere.

Putting on a pair of slip-on shoes, she went out to the hanger. On her way, she saw the cow standing on the side of the hanger that sheltered it from the wind. Seeing the cow made her feel even sicker. Its brain was unpolluted, because it was a cow and it hadn't done anything wrong.

She went inside. It took her a second to find the controls that Van used to open the hatch to the basement, but when she did find it, it was easy enough to work and the floor came open. She took hold of the rope ladder and let herself down. Then she started the stomping operation she had figured out the night before.

It was in the floor. It had to be in the floor. Allen had said that the treasure was in the basement. He couldn't have meant Escaflowne was the treasure like Hitomi thought at first. He meant something deeper.

Hitomi turned on the light and saw the room much brighter and then it was like there was a voice playing in her head. She knew the voice and she couldn't stop doing what it told her to do.

"When you turn on the light, go to your right. There's a picture frame on the wall. It has a mechanical engineering certificate in it. Take it off the wall. Under that there's a series of five black switches. They're the breakers for the electricity in the basement, but the bottom one is a fake. Flip it and step back."

Hitomi did what she was told, but she didn't step back fast enough and the floor moved out from under her and screaming she fell down. Her feet felt seared with pain as she landed on a cement floor. Her butt came down hard and it felt like she broke it.

Looking around, she was plunged into complete darkness, except for the square of electrical light that came from the hole in the ceiling.

Then the voice came again. "There should be a rope ladder for you to let yourself down on. Go down. When you're there, light up your wrist band. Take the goods and get out of there the way you came."

There was no rope ladder.

Hitomi felt like dying. She knew now that it was Folken's voice that played in her head. And she knew that she had been here before. When she had belonged to Allen, Folken had sent her here to steal the energists. Except, now she remembered exactly what was going on. She lit up her bracelet and saw the words marked on the wall. "Perfecting M.T.N. Energist technology one day at a time."

Then she threw up on the floor.

* * *

Van stood in the back of his pickup truck as he threw the scraps of old carpet into the flat bed. He looked over at the house. Was Hitomi still sleeping? Well, she had been up late. He'd let her sleep. After all, nothing terrible could happen to her. He'd set the perimeter so that she couldn't go further than the hanger. He whistled and took went back inside to get another stretch of carpet.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing. Someone wrote me a review last time that they didn't know what to say in reviews. You know, I even like reviews that are like 'please update'. Even just that makes me happy. Really. _


	17. Chapter 17

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 17**

Hitomi sat in the dark on her aching bottom and convulsed. All her memories came back. They came back when she remembered Folken's voice. All the time she had been Allen's property, she had loved him. And he hadn't loved her back. He had just used her to do every little nit-picky pathetic chore he could think of and then eventually dangerous things too.

"Go with Folken to pick up Marlene."

"Bring me a drink."

"Give me a massage."

"Just do it! I'm too drunk!"

The worst one of all was, "Go with Folken to pick up the energists."

Folken had known about his father's work and known exactly where to find his prototypes. Exactly when she had stolen the energists? What had been going on in Van's life? Was his father still alive? Was his mother still alive? Hitomi did the math the best she could and figured out that she was here after Van's mother had died and around the time his father died. It was iffy exactly when. Once she worked that out, she realized that nothing she did could have caused either of his parents to be infected with M.T.N. Both of them already had it before she arrived on the scene. Realizing that helped her to calm down and she began to breath more normally.

But now she remembered Folken. If he wasn't the definition of a hollow man then she didn't know what was. He was like a zombie, moving to do his master's bidding with the lanky animation of a corpse. Hitomi always felt sorry for him and feared that one day, he would turn his considerable talents towards her, because he always did what he was told … and the outcome wouldn't be good.

That was how her memory was wiped. Folken had hypnotized her and when Hitomi remembered the events that transpired before it was done she trembled with fear until she lay scrunched up on the floor like an egg. She couldn't stop the memories from flooding her head.

During the months Allen owned her, she did everything he asked and when the time expired he turned her loose. Hitomi got an apartment in a posh part of town and lived quietly for a few months, but even though Allen had given her plenty of money, her life seemed empty and cold. Her father and brother were totally disgusted with her for selling herself and she had been disowned. He had even quit working for the Schezars and had moved away to an unknown location. After that, there was no family to go home to and wherever else she went, her reputation always preceded her. During those months the only contact she had from the outside world were from agencies like Sleeping Beauty Inc. or personal requests for her services from individual men. Hitomi couldn't stand the idea of accepting. The men thought she had to be a good lay if Allen had owned her and the agencies were just in it for their cut. After living like that for a while, it felt like there was no place in the world where she could go.

She called Allen.

When he wouldn't take her call, she shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. After the initial shock wore off, she tried to call him again with the same result. That didn't work either, so she contacted the secretary who took over for her when her time with Allen ended and tried to get a job working for him. Allen cut her off at the gate. He didn't want anything to do with her.

Hitomi hated herself as she rocked back and forth on the cement floor. She held her hand over her nose and tried to ignore the vomit a few feet away from her face. It was making her gag, but that matched perfectly with her memory of phoning Allen – begging him to answer her.

It was the ignorance she displayed next in front of Allen that made her stomach lurch painfully. Back then, she was so lonely. She missed life with him so much … even though he wasn't kind to her. She truly had nowhere else to go. In the end, she did the unthinkable. She threatened him. She followed him to his place in the Cies Islands. There she told him that if he didn't buy her again, she would go to the media and tell them all about the energists. Well, it wasn't exactly like that. She fired that bombshell at the secretary over the phone. Within two hours, she Allen agreed to meet her on a cliff face overlooking the water.

She remembered that moment vividly. The sky was orange and the wind was hot and full of dirt.

He was shaking his head, saying he couldn't give her what she wanted and in the very next second, he pushed her over the edge.

In those half seconds she had to think before she hit the water, she knew that he meant to kill her and as far as she knew she would die.

But she didn't die.

She came out of the water and there was Folken, running to her air and mumbling something about how it was a joke of Allen's.

"That's a lie!" Hitomi screeched. "That maniac was trying to kill me. I'm going to the reporters."

Hitomi remembered Folken putting his bony arm around her and saying, "Come into the house for a minute. I'm sure Allen wants to apologize to you. I'm sure you could use some more travelling money and … he's very sorry."

Hitomi didn't even suspect Folken of anything, but as soon as they were inside the house, he handcuffed her to bar in a shelving unit that was built into the wall. She had no hope of breaking out.

And lucky her! She got to hear all of their discussion before they disposed of her. Allen just wanted to kill her, while Folken insisted they go a different route.

"Think about it," Folken said persuasively. "You bought her for thirteen million dollars. Certainly she hasn't spent it. We should get her to transfer all that money to us. We need it and getting it from her is much faster than the usual way. We could take out her overdraft too, wipe her memory and sell her again."

Allen nodded in agreement. "I have a place we could dump her that won't ask us any questions and will give us a good price. My uncle has a great reputation with them for keeping his word. They'll even break their confidentiality clauses and tell us who buys her."

"Perfect."

"But can you really erase her memory?"

"I'm not a professional," Folken conceded. "But I can make it so that the hypnosis won't unravel without me – my voice."

"Do it!"

And that was how it happened. Allen pointed a gun to her head while she signed all her money over to him, took out loans, and finally wrote the note for herself to find after she woke up with her memory wiped. That was the note she found that told her that the time with Allen hadn't gone well and it was just better to move on without knowing what happened. He hadn't needed to point the gun at her. By that point, she already agreed with all that.

Now she forced herself to raise her head in Van's father's lab. Again, she read the sign on the wall: "Perfecting M.T.N. Energist technology one day at a time." She was such a ditz; she didn't even wonder what those words could mean when she ransacked this place under Allen's orders. After all this time, she had no idea what they did with those energists. She didn't know whether they had sold them, or used them themselves, or studied them. She had no idea.

The room was lined with shelving units and clear glass boxes. They were still relatively free of dust. This room must have been somewhat preserved in the time that it had sat dormant. Each box had a round reddish ball inside that looked like a cross between a gem stone and a human heart.

She hugged her legs and thought about the virus M.T.N. She had been here before and hadn't contracted it, but this time she felt as good as dead. That was why she couldn't bring herself to step away from the vomit on the floor. She was scared of moving, just in case she got too close to anything.

The virus attacked a person's body in strange patterns. Sometimes the first thing a person would lose would be their sight. On another person, their legs might become so jittery that they'd be unable to walk. Some people couldn't flex their hands. By the end of the disease's term, they'd have lost it all. She could just imagine herself lying in the local hospital that Van's mother had died in, with the nurses keeping Van at bay.

And she still owed him twenty thousand dollars! She moaned into the light over her head.

Van had no idea where she was.

* * *

The wind rose higher and Van decided to drive his truck into the hanger to keep the carpet from flying right out of the back. As he pulled in beside his helicopter, he saw that the floor panel that exposed Escaflowne was open. At first glance he didn't believe it. He had to get out of the cab and stare down into the hole before it became real to him. He had no idea why it could be open and for a split second, he was terrified that someone had taken his treasure away. He calmed down once he saw the chopper's sleek silver paint job, but that still left the question as to why it was open in the first place.

Putting his head down to the opening, he yelled, "Hitomi."

"Van!" he heard her yelp too far down for him to see. She sounded hysterical.

"Where are you?"

"I'm in your father's lab. You can't come down here. He was experimenting with the M.T.N. virus. If you come down here you might get it. You have to call the hospital and have the paramedics come get me out safely."

Van didn't know what the heck she was talking about and lowered himself down onto the level that Escaflowne was on. "Where are you?"

"Go away, Van. I don't want you to catch this!" she cried.

Van was still skeptical. It seemed too ridiculous to say that his dad had been doing experiments with M.T.N. … or was it?

Within half a minute of following her voice he found the hole in the floor that she had fallen through. Van hid his shock at seeing her there with throw-up splattered across the floor beside her. Instead, he remembered everything the nurses had told him about M.T.N. at the hospital and asked her, "Did you touch anything?"

"No," she said, looking up at him through watery eyes.

"Was anything spilled on the floor? Any test tubes or anything like that?"

"I don't think so," she said feeling the ground with her hands and then jumping up on her feet.

"Then you're fine. M.T.N. isn't air born. Besides," he said grabbing the trap door and showing her how it fit into the floor up above. "This door isn't air tight. If I was going to get it via whatever is down there, I would have got it already. Hang on. I'll get you out of there."

Van lowered another rope ladder. It was actually one that was part of Escaflowne's flight gear and hauled her up. He tried to hug her once she was on his level, but she evaded him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I want to go to the hospital and get checked."

Van frowned. Then he took out his pocket watch and typed in a few buttons. "Do you have any itchy spots on your body – like in your knees? Does your body suddenly feel like your clothes are wearing you raw?"

"No," she answered, but then almost immediately, she began scratching her thigh. "Ack! Van, I'm ichy. What do I do?" she screamed.

Van scowled at her. "Wait a second," he said calmly. "Be honest. Did you start getting itchy after I mentioned it or were you itchy when you were down there?"

"I don't know," she bawled, scratching the back of her head. "Before, I guess."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look in his eyes steadily. "Was it before, really?"

She feebly tried to push his hand away. "Don't touch me. You'll get it."

"Answer me. Was it before or not until I mentioned it? Take two deep breathes and then tell me."

Hitomi did as she was told. When she was calm she said, "I guess it wasn't until you mentioned it."

"Okay." He let go of her and looked at his pocket watch. "The next test is one where you test the ph balance of your saliva." He went and got a first aid kit off the wall. He was still fumbling with the clasp when Hitomi fell in a heap on the floor. "You shouldn't be fainting, even if you got it."

"I just had to sit down," she huffed, wiping sweaty tears off her cheeks with her hands.

Van extracted a little slip of plastic and put it in her open mouth. "Keep that in there for at least thirty seconds and then I'll read it for you." Van sat down on the floor next to her and let her look at his watch to measure the time.

Thirty seconds later, he pulled it out of her mouth and read it. "It's within the normal range. You're fine."

Then she fell in his lap and started crying even harder than before. "Van, I'm so sorry. I stole energists from your dad's lab when I worked for Allen. I'm sorry."

Van put a hand on her head and stroked her short hair. He listened to what she said, but he felt numb.

She said more things, but Van wasn't paying attention. His mind was a-jumble of everything he'd never been told. The puzzle pieces were sliding together to form a picture, but it was foggy until Hitomi brought him out of it by asking, "Van, how did your mom contract M.T.N.?"

Absently, he reached over and pulled the trap door shut. "I don't know," he said quietly. "If she somehow contracted it from the energists, then that makes the most sense." Then he shook his head like he was shaking off the problem. "Let's go into the house, Hitomi. The storm is picking up." He helped her to her feet and helped her up the rope ladder onto the main floor.

Hitomi started walking to the door by herself.

"Stop," Van said. He pressed the buttons to close the trap door. "Wait for me. We'll go together."

* * *

_Author's Notes: Okay, my laptop is fixed now for all of you who wondered why I wasn't updating. I put it on my profile page, but some of you may not have seen it. My laptop got stomped on by someone cute and fuzzy and the screen broke and it took some time to get it fixed and I had nowhere to write. Drama. Drama. Drama. Hopefully, I'm back on course now. So, thanks to all who review. I like reviews. Really. And I'm sorry that this chapter isn't romantic. This is quite an important chapter and I couldn't do romance and foil the mystery in the same chapter when I've still got so much to write. _


	18. Chapter 18

_Author's Notes: Okay, I know that I should have had this out yesterday. Here's what happened. I was really busy and for some unearthly reason, I thought that it was Wednesday instead of Thursday. I know - this is unprecedented. Don't hate me, kay? I have a lot on my mind._

_

* * *

_

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 18**

Van rubbed his eyes. He had just finished putting Hitomi to bed. To say that it had been difficult to calm her down after fishing her out of his father's lab was an understatement. She was hysterical. He had to agree that the whole thing was quite creepy, but the last thing in the world he wanted was for his house to become the world headquarters of M.T.N. It wasn't that he didn't want to take her to the hospital. The truth was that he didn't need to look up that information on his pocket watch. He had already had early M.T.N. testing every time he went to the hospital to see his parents. He knew the drill and from what he heard from the nurses – it was really obvious when someone contracted it. Their saliva turned yellow almost instantly. So, Van gave Hitomi the PH test a few more times only to comfort her. He knew she didn't have it.

And now he had to go down to his father's lab and see for himself what was there. There were two biohazard suits in the back of his chopper and he put one on before going down. He wasn't sure if it was completely necessary to gird up his loins like that, but he planned to touch things and really snoop, so better safe than sorry.

He headed out to the hanger and opened up all the trap doors and hatches.

In his father's lab, he turned on his flash light and looked at the engerists all lined up in their little boxes. They looked creepy as Hell to him, but he couldn't ignore them. This was what Allen and Folken wanted.

Van ditched looking at the science fair projects and went to the computer, which was still plugged in, and booted it up. He had some trouble accessing the files, but hacking his father's brain for a password wasn't as difficult for him as he guessed it would have been for Folken. Their father was a mechanical engineer. Van punched in the serial code from his father's first chopper and gained complete access. From there he tried to use his cell phone to upload as much information as he could but there wasn't enough room. In the end, he had to use the pocket watch Sleeping Beauty Inc. had given him to upload the earlier files.

With that done, he shut everything back down and went back to the land of the living. On the way out, he changed the password to the trap door to a five digit number. There was no way he wanted Hitomi coming back here.

Back at the house, Hitomi was out of bed and sitting on the lip of the tub reading a pamphlet on M.T.N. that came with the first aid kit that they kept in the bathroom.

"For Pete's sake!" Van exclaimed when he saw her. "You still don't believe me that you're clean?"

"No. I believe you. I just can't relax and I thought that reading this would make me feel better."

Van sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I just-"

Hitomi tensed up and interrupted. "Those guys came here for that fake photo shoot because Sleeping Beauty Inc. told them where I'd been sold."

"I know."

She brushed off his hand. "I want you to know that I never slept with Allen."

Van was relieved that was true, but she'd still pushed him away. "No?"

"Yeah, but I was _such_ a fool. I can't stand it and who knows, one of the energists I stole might have been the one that infected Princess Marlene."

"Even so, you probably couldn't have helped that. I mean, you managed to transport them safely. If she got infected afterwards, how is that your fault?"

"I don't know. I just feel sick."

"You should sleep," he suggested calmly.

Hitomi got up and started pacing. "No. I can't stand it. Knowing all this stuff is too hard. I can't stand to be in my own skin. All the things I did – I don't want to know about them. Can't we go and get my memory wiped again?"

Van was appalled. "No! Tough it out! If you got your memory wiped now, you'd lose all the time that we had together too. I'm not paying for that." Van felt the vein in his forehead pulsing. He needed to stop. If she wanted to forget all about him, then why did he want to marry her? He got up from the tub and stalked into the kitchen. On his way, he yelled over his shoulder, "There are some sleeping pills in the first aid kit. If you can't stand it take a few and take a break from being you."

He didn't mean to be heartless, but he thought she was acting like a baby. And what was he supposed to do, coddle her? He didn't have time. He had to get to work reading his father's documents and figure out exactly what was going on or both of them were going to get chased down by the Schezar mafia lords.

* * *

Hitomi watched Van's retreating back. What he said to her really hurt. "Tough it out!" But even though it hurt, she knew that he was right. Admitting that made the whole thing hurt just that little bit more. She felt so miserable. She thought about crying, but the tears just weren't there. In the past, she'd cried a lot. Nothing came of it except mild exhaustion.

Absently, she picked up the whole first aid kit and took it into the guest room with her. The door sounded strangely loud as she it fell shut behind her. She opened the kit and took out three more PH tests. She wasn't going to take the sleeping pills. Then she dropped the box on the floor and paced herself as she lifted the covers and dropped herself back into bed.

The shadow of night fell and hours of darkness ticked away. Since Hitomi didn't take those pills, she had to stay away and think about the things she'd forgotten. She thought about how she had felt living after Allen discarded her and actively compared it to how she felt living with Van. Sitting alone in her apartment, she was like a corpse. Home decorating? She didn't have any interest back then. Her place had white walls; one white sofa in the living room. There wasn't even a speck of dust or the length of a single hair to break the monotony. Her hair was long when she awoke at Sleeping Beauty inc. not because hair grew in cryostasis, but because she didn't cut it. After Allen turned her loose, she didn't even style it. It just hung around her shoulders limp – like her.

And life with Van wasn't like that. With Van, there was always something else that had to be done. She was important – vital. She couldn't even imagine how lonely Van's life must have been before she came. When they were alone together, he always worked so hard. He didn't ask her to do anything he wasn't willing to do himself. Actually, he worked harder and gave her the easy jobs. She enjoyed working with him and even if they were taking the day off, she enjoyed being with him. They laughed together. Food tasted better. Everything was better.

Then she understood. At that moment Hitomi clued in to why Van was angry with her when she said that she wanted her memory erased. And suddenly, she knew something else – she never wanted to leave this place … or Van.

She sat upright in bed. Why had she waited so long to realize that he was her best bet? Why had she waited so long to realize that what she felt inside for him was more than enough? It was because somewhere in her sick little calculating brain she wanted to be with Allen, because she wanted the luxurious life that came with him. It was more than wanting orange juice, especially when that juice was bought with human blood. She felt sick.

It was one-thirty in the morning, but how could she face Van now that she knew what was wrong with her?

* * *

As the night wore on, Hitomi still didn't cry. She didn't need to cry. She needed to figure out what to say to Van. She prepared something and at eight o'clock in the morning she went and knocked on his bedroom door, but he wasn't there. Searching the rest of the house, she concluded he was out in the hanger. Then she went to the kitchen and packed up a few things to take Van to eat.

In the hanger, she found Escaflowne had been brought up to the main level and Van was on top of it installing the propeller blades.

"Good morning," she said quietly. "What's going on?"

He stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. Then leaning on his elbow, he said, "I found out that I'm not as bad at mechanical design as I thought."

"Huh?"

Van dropped himself down on the floor. "I always thought that I was bad at this. I worked on building Escaflowne from a plan my dad left behind. Certain things didn't line up and I always thought building this was so slow going because I wasn't as good as my dad. Turns out – I may not be my dad, but I'm not dumb as a post. The problem with the plans was – they were incomplete. Look at this." He led Hitomi to the back of Escaflowne and showed her the back where the engine was. Hitomi saw a glass box containing an energist. "As you can see, Hitomi, Escaflowne was designed to be powered by an energist and not by fuel. Weird, eh? I put in a gas tank, because I couldn't figure out what the old man was talking about, but it turns out that it wasn't supposed to need one."

"Wow!" Hitomi sounded excited, but she didn't know what he was onto. "But I thought that Folken had the only energist that worked?"

Van smiled. "Yeah, he has the only one that works close to the way my dad hoped, but all of these failed experiments still have a little juice in them. The problem now is that if I take Escaflowne into the air and power it with only an energist, it will fall out of the sky like a stone when it runs out of power. A helicopter doesn't glide. But since I already put in a gas tank, I can use an energist until it dies and then I'm hoping to get my gas tank to take over mid-flight."

"Can you do that?" Hitomi exclaimed.

"Who knows? Maybe my overcompensation will be enough to get it working properly. We'll see. It might be a disaster, but …" He trailed off and looked over her shoulder at the things she'd brought from the house. "Did you bring me breakfast?"

"Yeah." She blushed. Hitomi went over and bought out some muffins and a bottle of water.

"Thanks," Van said, taking a huge chug of the H2O. When he finished, he put down the drink. "Are you feeling any better this morning?"

She nodded. "But it's hard," she said slowly. She felt Van's eyes on her as she peeled the wrapper off a muffin. "I keep rolling it around in my head and I don't know why you'd want to be with me. I'm a mess."

"Aw well, who isn't?"

She shook her head. "You don't have to act like that. I …"

He waited.

Which was really a pity, because she really wanted him to jump in at that moment and tell her that he still wanted her and all that, but didn't. He just waited. And she couldn't answer either because her tongue was tied in three knots and lodged in her throat.

Then abruptly, he took her hand and pulled her close to him. Hitomi jumped a little. It was a hug. His other hand was on her back and she was squeezed close to him for about five seconds. Then he let go of her and smiled.

"Thanks for bringing me breakfast. I've been up all night and I'm starving."

Hitomi's tense shoulders sagged in relief. He wasn't going to push her for an answer right that second, but he delicately let her know that the door was still open. They could have this conversation on another day.

Then he changed the topic. "Last night, when I started reading my dad's notes, the first thing I found out is that energists are made from the hearts of fetal bulls."

"What?" Hitomi was astonished.

"It looks like a heart inside the box, right?"

"U-huh."

"Well, a full sized bull heart is much much bigger. The ones they use for energists are closer to the size of an adult human's."

"Why? How is that possible? I thought experimentation on animals has been illegal for almost a hundred years."

"It has been. Even eating beef has been illegal for almost fifteen years. I don't know about you, but before this came up, I didn't even question why it is illegal to eat beef. That's been going on since I was like ten and we hardly ever ate it before then - at least, not that I recall."

"Growing up, it was a rare experience for me too. Sometimes we had hamburgers, but those were mostly made with carrot and bread crumbs," Hitomi agreed.

Van took another drink before he cleared his throat and said, "I read that a fetal bull has a chemical in its circulatory system that is highly concentrated in its heart. It's called Ql. When the M.T.N. virus is exposed to it, the Ql and the virus create kind of a symbiotic relationship, but that's not it exactly since Ql is a molecule and not a living thing. It's more like the Ql both feeds the virus, allowing it to grow and live, but at the same time kills it, so that the virus is unable to spread. It's weird. The lifecycle of the virus moves so fast that it creates energy."

Hitomi was aghast. "Really? It creates so much energy that it can power a chopper?"

"Each transparent box in my dad's lab was an experiment. All of them have the heart of a baby bull that was infected with M.T.N. inside. Some of them have succeeded and made their own ecosystem of sorts, but don't get me wrong. None of them have a perfect system and eventually they'll all run out of power. Only the one Folken took came close to working properly." Van paused. "Do you remember what you stole out of there?"

"I'm not sure. I think I took the two next best energists, but I don't know."

"Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sure Folken hasn't figured out the answer to the last problem our dad faced."

"Which was?" Hitomi asked curiously.

"What organism, or bacteria, or substance to add to the energist to make it go on forever. If he had that nailed, neither he nor Allen would have come looking for your help. And they're still coming. We have to figure out how to get them to lay-off, but before that, I really want to give this energist/gas tank thing a try. Whoowee! My dad would have been proud."

* * *

_More Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. Once again - sorry about the lateness. I've been ULTRA overrun. _


	19. Chapter 19

_Author's Notes: I would like to dedicate this chapter to my shingu.  
_

_

* * *

_

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Nineteen**

Van sat in the hanger reading his dad's notes and comparing them with information he'd found on the web about Folken's chopper. Folken told the press that his chopper could go five hundred kilometers per hour. Van scratched his head and messed up his black brown hair even more. From how his father intended Escaflowne to ride with the energist power, his dad thought it could go closer to six hundred. Van let his hands droop while he studied the propellers on Escaflowne. He didn't know if the machinery could stand to move that fast.

Van scowled and started walking. He was going crazy. He had too many problems to weigh.

Ring. Ring.

It was his phone. Sleeping Beauty Inc. was calling him. Even though they were the last people he wanted to talk to, it was probably better to hear what they had to say than not. "Hello," he answered.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Fanel. I'm not sure if you remember me. I was the client coordinator you worked with when you bought Rose Red: Model 85001."

"I remember you, but I'm not sure why you're calling me. I already sent an email to you guys telling you that I have no plans to sell Hitomi."

"Yes. We know. That's why I'm calling you. I thought it only proper to let you know that the party that wanted to purchase her from you was most unhappy when they learned of your unwillingness to sell. A gentleman named Allen Schezar is on his way to your property right now to make you an offer in person."

"How did he get my address?" Van asked – his temper seething.

"Uh …"

"I already know that your agency forwarded Allen my contact information just after her sale. I could sue you for breach of our confidentiality agreement."

"I know," she said tightly on the other end of the line. "That's why I'm also calling to inform you that we're refunding her entire purchase price."

"Are you saying I have to return her?"

"No. I'm saying that we would like to end our agreement with you by refunding the total cost of the model."

Van was supremely relieved, but he kept his voice unyielding. "When will the money be transferred?"

"In less than half a minute. I need your permission before going through with the transaction. Do I have your permission?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." There was a pause. "There. The money has been transferred. Thank you for your business. Please, take care, Mr. Fanel."

"Thanks." He hung up.

He stood there for a second and let the bad news and the good news filter through his processors. The bad news – Allen was coming here. Folken would probably fly him in via chopper, so Van didn't have much time. The good news – he had a full bank account.

He got out his pocket watch and called Hitomi into the hanger.

She came running. Van grinned when he saw her. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt, an old pair of his jeans that she'd cut off during renovations and a blue bandana around her neck. Pink cheeked and out of breath, she panted with a little stamp of her foot. "What's going on?"

"Allen is on his way."

"Here?" she gasped.

"Here." Van came over to her and shoved the keys to his truck into her hand. "I need you to drive to town. I'm going to fly Escaflowne to Dilandau's and meet you there. It's okay if Folken and Allen get into the lab. It sounds like Folken knows what's there already. What I need to do is get Escaflowne, and my father's plans for her out of here. You too. So, get in and drive to town, right now. I'll follow you and make sure you get there safely. Okay?"

Hitomi took the keys from him, planted a swift kiss on his cheek and got in the truck. She unrolled the window and he came over.

"Just start driving. I'll catch up."

She stalled the engine as she tried frantically to start it.

"Are you scared?"

"Nope," she declared, trying again and igniting the engine properly the second time. "I'm just going to do exactly what you tell me to do and I'm sure it will work out all right. After all, how bad could things be if we're not where the killer virus is?"

"Point taken. Drive safely and slowly if you need to. Don't put the truck in the ditch over nerves."

"I won't."

He nodded to her in a friendly sort of way, and then he remembered the peck she gave him. He stepped up so that he was leaning towards her in the cab. He put a hand on her cheek and helped her tilt her head towards her. "What you remembered didn't change how I felt about you. I'm glad we know what we're facing now."

"Each other?" she asked quietly, looking into his eyes.

"Yeah." He smiled. "We're facing each other, but because of you remembering everything, I now know how to deal with those guys. Don't worry about what happened back then with Allen. I'm not angry with you and I'll sort the rest out. Hopefully, we can give Folken something to satisfy him and send him packing."

"Does that mean you're coming back here after we drop off Escaflowne?"

"Probably."

"Why?" she wailed. "Just let them pick through what's in the basement and when they're finished we can come back and clean up the mess."

Van didn't answer her. For him, he couldn't even hear what she was saying, he was completely mesmerized by her coral coloured lips and without even thinking – he kissed her. He couldn't help it. This time she didn't fight against him or throw him off and instead she let him kiss her. When he was done and began to pull away, Hitomi followed him until her head was almost out the window. Van jumped down and waved goodbye to her.

He was completely satisfied. Not only had she kissed him back but now he got to watch her fumble with the gear shift. Her cheeks had the darkest rose flush and she was having trouble backing up. He smiled brilliantly as he watched her go around the corner. If that wasn't ecstasy then he didn't know what was. He put his hands in his pockets and strolled over to the drafting boards. He had to pack up.

Then he turned around and stared at Escaflowne. He'd just about made a_ huge_ mistake. He turned around and took off at a dead run towards Hitomi and the truck. He'd been thinking about kissing her, not about flying. Damn! Running like a mad man and screaming, she stopped right away.

Poking her head out the window she yelled to him, "What's the matter?"

He was out of breath and panting, but he stopped and rested his hands on his knees. For a second he couldn't bear to tell her his mistake and he just stood there looking and feeling kind of stupid.

She honked the horn. "What's wrong?"

He raised his head and smiled sheepishly. "I need you to pull Escaflowne out of the hanger for me."

Hitomi rolled her eyes and laughed. "Right."

* * *

After Hitomi helped drag Escaflowne out of the hanger she was about to head down the long driveway, when she realized that Van wasn't the only one who was forgetting things. She wanted to get a few things from the house. The drive to town wasn't short and she would surely die without a bottle of water and she reflected sadly – the first aid kit. She knew she shouldn't still want it. Van had told her repeatedly that she didn't need to check her PH levels all the time. He said that within a day or two a patient's saliva turned yellowish. Knowing that just made Hitomi spit into the sink ten times a day to see if her spit was yellow. But now that she was going into town, she couldn't help her hyper OCD behavior and ran into the house to get a bottle of water and the first aid kit.

As she pulled the truck out onto the main road, she looked into her rearview mirror to spot Van walking around Escaflowne making final preparations. Well, she'd have to leave him and get a head start just like he said. He would be able to catch up to her lickity-split.

But he didn't.

She kept looking into her side view mirrors, tugging herself forward to look into the sky through the windshield, sticking her head out the window and listening for the chopper blades. Nothing came.

She was calm until she found a chopper hovering in the sky – except that it wasn't the right one. It wasn't silver, but red. That could only mean that Allen and Folken were coming to talk to Van now. If that was them, then there was no way that Van could follow her. That meant that whether he was in the air or not, he had to run. And the only thing Hitomi could do to help was to get to town and be where he told her to be, so she kept driving. The chopper didn't even seem to notice her and flew right over her head.

Then she came to the gravel roads that were never grated, never plowed in the winter time and degenerating to nothing but pounded down dirt. On these, she couldn't even drive a hundred kilometers per hour. Her speedometer was stuck hovering around eighty and even then she knew she was taking a chance. These roads were narrow and some of them had deep irrigation ditches on both sides.

Before long, she had to drop it down to sixty. Her heart was like one of the thumpers in _Dune_, and it really wouldn't do to go in the ditch. She didn't even have a phone with her – only that damn bracelet that didn't even let her call Van.

Then she was going thirty.

Then zero.

There was a cow on the road.

Hitomi put the truck in park and honked the horn like fifteen times. The stupid thing hardly blinked in her direction. Hitomi didn't get it. Why wasn't it running off scared? Normally, it would. Wouldn't it?

She got out and approached it – really slowly. As she got closer, she saw that it had had a run in with a barbed wire fence and a portion of it was still in the cow's back leg. Hitomi stared up into the sky in wonder.

Out loud she asked the universe, "Why in its back leg? You know that if I make a wrong turn this broad is going to kick me in the ribs – they'll all break, I'll be in intense, ridiculous, profuse pain and Van won't be able to pay for the hospital bill? You know that, right?"

The universe stared back at her with that big blue expanse that it always has and though she didn't hear its words she knew the answer. It went something like, "Yeah, I know."

Hitomi pushed her sweaty bangs out of her face with a frustrated hand. This was worse than feeding it.

Gently, she approached it. Strangely, it seemed used to people and smelled her as she got closer. She patted its back and petted it gently before making it to the back end. She touched the barbed wire with the gentlest tap and the beast staggered sideways. Then without thinking, Hitomi grabbed the fur on the cow's back with one hand and the barbed wire with the other and pulled the two apart.

The cow bellowed and bolted a dozen steps further down the road.

Hitomi shouted a quiet hurray before heading back to the truck to get her water bottle to wash off her hands.

"You'd better thank me, cow! I just saved your life," she said triumphantly as she rinsed the cow stink off her hands.

Then the cow started towards her again, which Hitomi thought was strange. The thorn was out of its paw (figuratively). Shouldn't it have been on its way? But it didn't leave. It came closer and closer, and then Hitomi noticed something that made her guts lurch.

The saliva dripping from its mouth looked like pee.

Without hesitating, Hitomi reached into the cab of the truck through the window and seized the first aid kit. Ripping it open, she scavenged two PH tests. One was for her and one was for the puddle of spit on the ground.

She stuck it in and while she was waiting for it to register she asked herself if she was feeling itchy. She was, but she always felt itchy whenever anyone asked her if she did – even if it was herself that asked.

Then she picked up the tester that was for the cow. It registered two ticks below dangerous for M.T.N.

She stuck her own PH tester in her mouth and studied the cow. Could it see? She moved around and the cow followed her with its eyes. Then she stayed still and made some noises. The cow moved then too. Looking at the cow, she didn't understand what was going on. All its limbs seemed to be holding together. Had it just contracted M.T.N.? Did it not have it?

Her PH test was normal.

She got back in the truck and drove around the cow, back on course towards town.

Well, she didn't care what Van would think of her. She was going to the hospital before she went to Dilandau's. She couldn't risk getting other people sick.

That was what she thought until another horrible thing happened to her. Her bracelet started ringing. It rang incessantly – just like it had that morning when Van couldn't find her and used the bracelet to page her. He had changed the perimeter on her again and now she couldn't even go as far as town.

It rang and rang and rang and rang and rang until Hitomi thought she was going to lose her mind. It was so loud. It wouldn't stop. The sound was ruining her driving. She was going too fast. She wasn't driving in a straight line because she kept trying to put her wrist behind her back to muffle the sound and that didn't even help!

By the time she got into town, she would have been declared a certified mental patient if she'd gone to the hospital. Instead, she drove to Dilandau's. It was closer.

As she drove up, Dilandau was resting in between an ancient Camaro and an old ping pong table nestled within the height of his grass drinking a beer. He heard her alarm going off, put a shirt on to cover his plaster-white chest, and came up to the truck.

"What the Hell is that?" he yelled.

The alarm was too loud, she couldn't even hear him. She could only figure out what he was saying because under the circumstances, there was nothing else to say.

She pointed to the bracelet and threw her hands up in the air in frustration.

Straightway, Dilandau disappeared into his horde of junk and bought out a pair of bolt cutters. Hitomi stuck out her wrist and he cut the thing clean off her. And the infernal noise stopped.

"Dilandau," Hitomi said breathlessly. "You are the wickedest guy I've ever met."

He smiled. "I know."

* * *

_Author's Notes: Okay kittens! Today is a day for challenges. Here's the challenge. Are you ready? Buckle up! After I finish Rose Red, I plan to release 'Dragon's Moon' under a new title (Mark of the Dragon) on Fictionpress. Do a google search - fiction press. It's the sister site to this site that hosts non-fanfiction/original writing. I will release the first chapter on the same day that I release the last chapter for Rose Red - BUT! Everyone who wants to follow Mark of the Dragon should go make fictionpress accounts TODAY! And then they should go sign up for Author Alerts for me. I have the same pen name with the exact same spelling. The site even looks almost identical to this one except that it is red. It's free - and reading Mark of the Dragon will be 50X better than Dragon's Moon. I dead serious edited this bad boy 10 times. It will be 100% worth your time._

_Besides, I've been writing there for years and there are a few good things posted there. Check out 'His Sixteenth Face'. _

_AND THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO READS AND REVIEWS. I DO THIS FOR YOU! _


	20. Chapter 20

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter Twenty**

Van heard the blades of Folken's chopper before he saw them. Without hesitating, he threw the rest of his cargo into the back and got in the front seat. Van secured his five-point seat belt, put on his ear phones, and started Escaflowne up.

This was a crappy situation, even before Van realized what Folken was planning on doing; he knew the situation was ugly. It was bad because; a) Van wasn't sure how well the energist working with the fuel tank would function; b) over ninety percent of helicopter crashes are fatalities; c) Van was hoping that Folken wouldn't even see Escaflowne before he got it to town and; d) Van really wanted to talk to his brother. But once Escaflowne's blades were spinning, he got wind of Folken's tactics. He was suspending his chopper above Escaflowne, blocking Van from getting in the air.

Looking up through the top of the windshield he could see Folken and his Top Gun shades staring back at him. His jaw was set and the rest of his expression was ugly. Van glared back at him, stuck his own shades on and got back to the controls.

Even with Folken waiting above him, Van lifted off and hovered a few meters in the air, but Folken wouldn't back off. If Van's blades bashed into Folken's runners, they could both crash, but Folken didn't back off.

Van tried flying close to the ground and like he predicted, Folken kept his chopper overtop of Escaflowne with ease. Van sped up. It was dangerous to fly fast low to the ground. Actually, that was one of the surest ways to end up a bag of bones in the incinerator, but Van didn't know what else to do. He couldn't let Folken get ahold of his chopper or their father's plans. Damn. Van sped up.

Folken had the advantage. The higher he was the faster he could move, so it didn't matter if Escaflowne could go a whole hundred kilometers faster, it was suicide to do it that close to the ground.

Van had to figure out a way to get Folken off his head. He needed a bridge to fly under or a cliff or something to give him a clip-off so he could speed up suddenly, force Folken higher and cut him off to gain some altitude. The only problem was that were in the middle of the driest furthest reaching prairie in the world. Van had no idea where to go other than to point himself towards the mountains, which was in the opposite direction of Hitomi and town.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Hitomi sat in a booth at the café with Celena and Dilandau. After Dilandau cut her bracelet off, he went with her to the hospital so she could get tested for M.T.N. Miraculously, she was clean. She didn't understand it. She was sure that cow she had given the PH test to had the virus and she had had its blood on her hands. That would have been enough to spread the disease, wouldn't it? Didn't Van's father get it just by holding hands with his wife?

Now Celena was playing with Hitomi's broken bracelet on the table. "You really shouldn't have cut it off, Dil. It's a felony."

Dilandau grunted. "If you heard the hellish high-pitched hullabaloo, you wouldn't be saying that."

Hitomi shrugged her shoulders. "Van can take me to Sleeping Beauty Inc. to get it repaired or replaced or whatever. It shouldn't be against any law. He told me to go to town. It's not my fault he forgot to fix my perimeter settings. Besides, Van should be here soon."

"Do you really think he's going to make it if you saw Folken's chopper on its way to the house?" Dilandau asked like he thought Hitomi was an idiot. "I'll bet my digits, he won't be here tonight. He's not even answering his cell phone."

"That doesn't mean anything," Hitomi denied. "He never checks his calls or takes calls when he's flying."

Dilandau didn't say anything and instead of fighting with Hitomi concentrated on getting something out of his ear. Celena got up and betook herself to the kitchen, leaving Hitomi and Dilandau to wait for Van.

Finally, Hitomi asked, "When is Dryden supposed to get here?"

"Any minute."

Hitomi sat there and contemplated that if this were a normal romance novel, Dryden or Van would have strode in with a winning smile in under a minute if only to get the story moving, but neither of them showed up and instead Hitomi sat there staring at Dilandau. Eventually, he got tired and yelled to Celena that he was going home.

Hitomi didn't miss him once he was gone, but neither Van nor Dryden showed up and the supper hour came. Celena made Hitomi move to the bar so that there was room for one more group of paying customers. But she gave Hitomi a bowl of powdered onion soup on the house. Hitomi sighed and dipped her spoon into the dark liquid. It was the cheapest thing on the menu.

Partway through the evening, Hitomi got frustrated with sitting still and went into the kitchen to wash dishes and help Celena with the customers. Hitomi always thought they were sparse, until she started cleaning their plates, then they seemed endless.

Dryden did come close to midnight, but Van didn't.

He came into the kitchen and looked and sounded handsome and suave. It really was ridiculous for a man to look so good in glasses. It was just about as ridiculous as how his charms did nothing to turn Hitomi's head. She wished Van had come.

However, she didn't let her feelings of disappointment stop her from functioning or relating what Van had learned about M.T.N., the bull hearts being the cores of energists, and the cows she had met since she got to the cafe.

When she finished, Dryden nodded, "Well, that certainly does raise some interesting questions. I'll go out to the fields tomorrow and see if I can find some cows to test."

"Be careful not to approach a bull by accident," Celena said vaguely from the corner of the kitchen. "They're vicious."

"Right. I need to find solitary cows," Dryden said cheerfully.

"Can you go out to Van's house, too? He may have ended up back there and it would be good to find out if who's there. Can you?" Hitomi asked quietly.

Dryden smiled like the tawny rogue that he was. "Anything … for a lady."

Hitomi blinked at him.

He sighed. "Not in the mood?"

"Not really."

* * *

That night Hitomi and Dryden bunked up at Dilandau's house. Dryden made a bed on the living room floor since he was too tall to lie comfortably on the crumbling compact couch. Hitomi tried sleeping on it, but it was no picnic for her either, since she couldn't stretch out on it either – her feet stuck out over the armrest. In the end, she rammed herself up on her side in the fetal position and looked at the top of Dryden's head.

After Dilandau, Celena and Merle went to bed, Hitomi and Dryden were all alone. It was summer and the crickets outside the open windows were chirping. Hitomi looked out through the crack where the window's grime couldn't touch and looked at the liquid navy sky and the two or three white stars she could see twinkling from there. Mercy, she hoped Van was all right.

"Hey Dryden," she whispered. "Are you awake?"

"It's only been about three minutes since we shut off the lights. Of course I'm awake. What do you need?"

"Can I borrow your cell phone? I want to try calling Van again."

He forked it out and Hitomi tried Van's number three times before she dropped it on Dryden's pillow with a quiet, "Thank you."

"What's so great about that guy anyway?" Dryden asked as he reached his hand into his pants' pocket to pull out his lighter. When Hitomi didn't answer him, he began flicking a tiny flame on and off like he was full of tension.

"Do you need a smoke?"

"Not really."

The moment lasted. It was a moment where Hitomi hoped that Dryden would let his question slide without pressing her for an answer.

But he did press. "Is it too uncomfortable a question for me to ask? I notice you're without your bracelet. Did he set you free or something? Is that why you're so worried about him?"

"No," Hitomi admitted. "Dilandau cut it off me with a pair of bolt cutters."

"Which is illegal."

"Yeah," Hitomi said before she explained the deafening buzzer that wouldn't stop. "Besides, I'm not going to run away, so it doesn't matter?"

"Why not? If I were you, I'd run away." Dryden's voice sounded full of melancholy and deep despair in the darkness.

She had to make him understand. "You know, I imagine that most guys who would buy a girl would be sleazy, but Van's not. In the case of belonging to him, it's really not that different from being employed by him."

"Really?" The tones were sarcastic and unbelieving.

"Yeah. He wants me to marry him."

Dryden let out a puff of air from his mouth like he was smoking. "Well, I guess that's that. He couldn't be a bad guy if he wants to marry you. That at least gives you a few rights when you've already voluntarily signed them away." He paused and still lying down, he began rummaging through his things. "You know, I really could do with a smoke."

He sat up and took the cigarette in his hands. He lit it and just as he did, Hitomi saw the light from the fire glean off something on his wrist. Hitomi glanced at it and then she stared. He was wearing a long sleeved white collared shirt, and for the most part, it covered a very thick linked chain that was very tight around his wrist. It could only really be one thing. People didn't wear wrist watches anymore. Everyone had the time on their phones, but Hitomi had to see it up close to make sure.

After Dryden finished his smoke, he put it out and rolled over to go to sleep. He slept on his left side, which was the same side that Hitomi wanted to check. So instead of going to sleep, she kept her eyes open and waited for him to turn onto his other side.

It felt like she waited forever before he finally did it.

When he did, Hitomi slid off the couch and tiptoed alongside him in her ankle socks. Then she crouched next to his hand and tugged gently on his sleeve.

And BOOM! Dryden snapped both her wrists into death grips and slammed her on the floor under him.

There was one breathless moment where they stared into each other's eyes and their bodies touched before his wristband started giving him electric shocks. He flew off her and gripped his burning wrist with his free hand. It was so violent, he was vibrating. Hitomi wanted to do something, but couldn't. If she touched him again, it would no doubt trigger another shock. She could only stare at him in horror.

When it was over, Dryden wiped his sweaty face with the sleeve of his shirt. "Find out what you wanted to know?"

"Does Princess Marlene own you?" Hitomi whispered.

"I work for her in name only. In actuality, I am owned by her younger sister, Princess Millerna."

Hitomi swallowed a knot in her throat. "I'm sorry it's so awful."

"Awful? You haven't seen the half of it. My bracelet—" He showed it to Hitomi freely now. "Makes a report and sends it to her. It'll say something like, 'Model 2098 was approached by free woman at eleven hundred hours.' Then it'll make it sound like we almost had sex before it put the buzzer on me. Bastard."

"But we didn't almost have sex. The thought never crossed my mind. Did you think of it?"

He didn't answer her, but instead said, "I'll tell you one thing. You are damn lucky that you weren't wearing your bracelet because if you were, it would have connected you with the incident and sent a report to Van."

"Well, if you knew that all that was going to happen then why didn't you push me off or slap my hand? Why did you drag me under you?"

Dryden turned his head and stared off into nowhere rather than look at Hitomi. "I'm very attracted to you tonight."

Hitomi stared. "That came out of nowhere."

"It is out of nowhere. I have met hundreds of purchased women. Mostly, they are totally despicable people who would do anything for their fee. They dress like whores and push four hundred pound men around in wheelchairs. I have never once thought that one of them was an unfortunate person. And I myself am not a particularly unfortunate man." He suddenly turned to face her and looking directly at her, he asked, "Do you know me? Do you know how I ended up like this? I bet you do – guess."

Hitomi thought about what she knew about him. He described the purchased women he knew as looking like whores and for a guy, he didn't fall too short the mark. But everything else about him seemed to point to him being a legitimate private detective. Once she got that sorted out she made what she felt was a guess. "You were working as a private detective, but your business wasn't doing so well. That was why you knew Dilandau – because you were in similar circumstances. Then one day, just after Princess Marlene got sick, someone from Princess Millerna's staff came to see you. They interviewed you a few times, and eventually you were invited to meet the princess herself. She offered you the job of hunting up information on Allen, but only on the condition that she would own you for five years? Did it go like that?"

Dryden's shoulders sagged and he rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. "You're nearly on the money. Except that she didn't hire me for five years. She purchased me until I figure out three things."

"What are they?"

"The first thing I have to do is to prove how Marlene got the virus in the first place. Secondly, I have to figure out a way to prove that Allen's responsible so he can be prosecuted for it. Lastly, I have to bring her an energist."

"Do you think you can do all that?"

"If I can then I'll earn fifteen million dollars and if I can't, I'll be working for Princess Millerna for the rest of my life. But you see, I think that I can to trump her list if I can figure out a way to save Marlene's life."

"You're thinking of figuring out a way to cure M.T.N.? Holy cats! You're ambitious!"

He shook his head. "I don't think it's ambitious at all. Animal testing has been done away with for ages, but I after what you said today, I plan to reinstitute it. I bet we could learn a lot from cutting just one cow open."

"You can't! It's illegal. Besides, why do all that for them? I thought you wanted to run away."

"Of course I want to run away. It wasn't that I liked my old life either. Both roads are hard."

Hitomi frowned. "Don't cut open a cow. I don't want to see you get in trouble."

Dryden stared at her. "Yeah, it's illegal, but look what you and Dilandau did when the circumstances suited you. You should have gone to the police and got them to override the system."

The idea of going to the police had never occurred to Hitomi. Now she wanted to smack herself in the head.

Luckily, Dryden went on before she could interrupt. "And besides, people like Marlene and Allen and Millerna eat beef sometimes and they never get in trouble for it. If I got called in for questioning about killing a cow, I could just send it back to Millerna's court. She could handle it and if it brought me closer to figuring this mess out then she would highly approve."

"They eat beef? All of them?"

"All of them."

Hitomi looked around the room awkwardly while she thought. "Do you think that was where Marlene got the M.T.N.? Do you think she ate its heart while everyone else was eating its flanks?"

Dryden gasped and sputtered, "Maybe that's possible. I never even thought of that when you were telling me that story about yellow cud. You're a genius, Hitomi. I'll call Millerna in the morning and see what she knows."

"Okay. We've got a plan," Hitomi said. Then she stood up and went back to her place on the couch. She scratched her head and rested it on the pillow, this time with her back to Dryden.

Then she felt his voice slipping over her shoulder like a hand. "I heard that Van pretty much gave up everything he had to buy you. It really was no mistake. A girl like you is worth everything a man has."

Hitomi sighed into the darkness. "I really love him, you know."

"I know, but tonight, I can't stop being attracted to you."

* * *

Van tried to get comfortable in the pilot's seat in Escaflowne, but it was no use. This vehicle just wasn't designed to be slept in. His engine was silent and the power was off. There was still a bit of gas in the tank, but for now, it was better to keep everything off to let the energist charge.

He'd lost Folken. It was nothing shy of a miracle, but now, he had no idea where he was and he dared not send any messages to the satellites or take any. In the morning, using the old ways, maybe he could figure out which direction to go to get back to town.

And Hitomi … he hoped that she was all right.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. One of my friends who reads these posts likes my author's notes. If you knew me personally, you'd know that I like to quote things. It's honestly amazing that I can book over 600,000 words here of somewhat original fiction since half of my conversation is mish-mashed quotes from who knows where. So today I'm going to do three and not say where they're from. Good luck guessing where they're from. 1. "I have a crush on every boy!" 2. "Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals ... except the weasel." 3. "If you keep talking to yourself, people will think you're crazy." - Thanks for the tip!" - "I wasn't talking to you." Have a great week!_


	21. Chapter 21

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 21**

In the morning Hitomi rolled over, off the couch and onto Dryden's face.

"Ack!"

After that, they didn't talk until they sat across from each other in the café eating the hash browns and toast that Celena brought them. She heard the screaming too that morning and her expression spoke of annoyance.

Dryden lit his cigarette and rubbed the crud out of his eyes.

"So," Hitomi wondered. "Where are you going to start? Have you got a plan?"

He glared at her. "My plan consisted of sleeping for another hour."

"Can I borrow your cell phone to call Van?"

Dryden took out his phone and looked at it sleepily. "That's would be one place to start. I can think of a better one. I'll call Millerna." He pressed two buttons and had her video feed projected onto the wall of the booth where we were sitting.

A grouchy blond butler answered. Hitomi was stunned. He didn't look older than thirteen. "This is Chid. Who's calling?"

"It's Detective Fassa? Is Millerna available? I've got to speak with her urrgennttllly." The last word was drawn out because Dryden was yawning.

When Chid saw him, he yawned too. "She's eating her breakfast, but I think I could manage pointing the camera towards her."

He moved the camera and for a second, the screen was blurred as it was moved to a different location. Millerna came into focus. Hitomi was stunned. The princess had bed head. There was a smudge of leftover makeup under one eye and she was stifling a yawn, but she still looked like a billion bucks. That was royalty for you. Her breakfast plate was in front of her and she delicately chewed a blackberry speared on her fork.

"Do you have news?" she asked.

"Yes." Dryden pointed towards her with his thumb. "This is Hitomi Kanzaki. She's been most helpful, so I was hoping she could sit in on our meeting."

"That's fine."

"Good. She and Van discovered a secret lab under the floor in Van's hanger. They found out that energist technology is tied to M.T.N. and beef."

"What?" she asked, as she rolled something brown she was chewing into her cheek.

"Energists are made out of fetal bull hearts. That's their core. Hitomi did a PH test on a cow she met on the road yesterday. The test suggests that cows might be carriers for the M.T.N. virus."

Millerna spit what she was eating into a napkin. "Bring me a PH test!" she shrieked. "Hurry!"

Dryden and Hitomi waited while Millerna did the test on herself and ordered all the food off the table at once. Hitomi groaned. The princess was eating beef for breakfast – ew!

When Dryden was again able to talk to her, he asked, "Where do you get your beef?"

"My father has a supplier in Montana," she said with a PH test sticking out of her mouth.

"Does Allen have anything to do with what meat is shipped in?"

"No," she pouted.

Dryden sucked in his breath. "That could mean that he isn't responsible for Marlene contracting the disease."

Millerna looked so vehement that she might spit. Hitomi hoped it wouldn't be yellow.

"I have a question." Hitomi interjected. "Folken and Allen have at least three energists. Is there any possibility that Marlene touched one of those out of its glass case?"

Millerna shook her head. "I don't know the answer to that. I'll have to go see her and ask."

"When you talk to Marlene, be sure to ask her if she's ever eaten a cow heart. We believe that's where the greatest concentration of the disease would be present. Can you do that?"

"Sure," Millerna said acidly.

"Great. Then we'll stop our meeting there. Millerna, Van and Hitomi have samples in the lab at her place. I think we should go out there and see if we can dig up a sample energist for you – like you wanted. Then I'll have done all three things you asked me to do."

"What? No you haven't," she denied.

"What haven't I done? First, you wanted me to tell you how Marlene contracted M.T.N. I've done that. If she didn't get it from touching an energist directly, then it's quite possible that she got it from eating flesh from an infected animal. Secondly, you asked me to prove to you how Allen was responsible. Depending on Marlene's answers to those other questions – that should clear that up quite nicely. And now, I'm on my way to get you a sample. Our contract is almost complete. Once I get the energist, I'll come back. See you probably either tonight or tomorrow morning."

Hitomi couldn't help but notice how sorry Millerna looked. She looked distinctly pained before she turned off her phone and the wall went dark.

Hitomi turned to Dryden and said, "Look, I didn't want to make you lose credibility in front of Millerna, but I don't know if you can get an energist back at the hanger. Van changed all his codes. And even if I could get into the basement, I'm not sure that Van would want me to let you have one."

Dryden didn't flinch. "Who else were you and Van planning to give your findings to? Princess Millerna desperately wants to save her sister's life. If we can find a way through examining the deconstruction of an energist, don't you want that too?"

"Yeah, but—"

"But nothing. There's no one else you can trust and Millerna has loads of money. She can afford to pay scientists to do the leg work. Trust me, okay?"

Hitomi frowned. "All right, but first let's go see how Van's place has held up. Maybe the Schezars robbed the place last night and then blew it to smithereens." She downed the rest of her orange liquid and got ready to go.

* * *

Hitomi felt nervous as they got closer and closer to the house. There was one nice thing to look forward to though. There was no way that someone could hide a vehicle on Van's property. If a chopper landed, than there were no trees to hide it. Except for a few decorative saplings in the garden, the place was flat ground.

When they got there, Dryden drove his Jeep in a figure eight around the house and then around the hanger. Then Hitomi got out and opened the big doors on either side of the hanger and it too looked completely deserted.

"Great," Dryden said as he got out and came into the garage. "Let's get to the lab."

Hitomi went over and punched in the appropriate numbers, and the doors to where Van usually hid Escaflowne came open. The two of them slid down the rope ladder before stopping in front of the entryway to the lab. Hitomi put in the digits code she knew and nothing happened.

"I told you Van changed the password," she stammered.

"Well, what would he have changed it to?"

Hitomi screwed up her face. "I have no idea."

Dryden popped the cover off the number panel and hooked his phone up to it, using a red wire and a yellow wire.

"Wow," Hitomi said as she watched him work. "I didn't even know you could still do that."

"It's only for emergencies and I won't be able to find out what the code is, just what kind of code it is."

"What do you mean?"

"You know. If it's all numbers or all letters, or a combination of the two, and how many characters it is all. There we go. I got it. It's five numbers long. Does that narrow it down any for you?"

"No."

"Wait a second. What's your number?"

"I don't have a number."

"Yes you do," Dryden grumbled, like he couldn't believe she didn't know what he was talking about. "What's your model number? The one Sleeping Beauty Inc. gave you?"

"85001."

"That's it." He punched it in and the hatch swung open. "Didn't you know that all females sold have a five digit number assigned to them and all men have a four digit number?"

Hitomi rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm not a private detective. Duh."

"Are you coming down?" Dryden asked as he lowered another rope ladder.

"No thanks. I'll stay up here."

Dryden dropped down. Hitomi watched him get his bearings and begin poking around.

"Be careful," she called.

"Or you might get M.T.N.," a voice said from above Hitomi's head.

Her chin shot up and she was staring at Folken. Hitomi was stunned at how old he looked. She had last seen him five years ago. He didn't get face lifts like Allen and the skin around his eyes and mouth was wrinkled. His hair was cut painfully short, but the mole on his cheek that looked like a teardrop was still there.

Hitomi stared at him. "How did you get here? We checked the place. I didn't hear a chopper just now."

Folken gawked at her. "This is my own house. You think I don't know where to hide a chopper. It's in the coulee." He pulled a gun out of the back of his pants and came down the rope ladder.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I get you what you needed when I worked for Allen?" Hitomi asked, keeping an eye on the barrel of his gun.

"Unfortunately no, and when the first energist I stole stopped working, I had to use one of the ones you stole. Then it wore out and now I'm on the third, which means I need another one."

Then they heard the sound of an engine outside.

"Is that a chopper?" Hitomi asked in a whisper.

"No," Folken said, rushing to the controls to close the trap door over their heads. "It's a truck." It went shut with a clang. And in the next second, Folken had his gun to Hitomi's head and his hand over her mouth. "Don't move."

Over their heads, Hitomi heard someone come in the hanger. "Anybody here?" it was Van.

Folken muscled Hitomi over to the trap door and let her go. Pointing the gun at her head, he hissed, "Don't make a sound, or I'll shoot. Get down there."

That pit was Hell and Hitomi didn't want to go, but that gun made her.

After she was down, Folken came down at lightning speed, pulling the hatch closed with him. Now it was completely dark in the lab. There were only four pinpricks of light that came from the corners of the trap door over their heads.

Where was Dryden? Hitomi couldn't sense him anywhere.

Then she heard Van. "You think you can hide down there? Idiot." The top hatch came open. Then the lab door opened.

Folken was caught red handed as Van stared down at them in the hole. Van had a double barreled shot gun pointed at Folken's head. "How could you take Hitomi back down there when she took PH tests every five minutes for two days after being down there for an hour? Monster."

"Look," Folken said evenly, but not dropping his gun. "I just came to get a couple old energists."

"To power your chopper?"

"Yeah."

"Then you figured out that the crappy ones work, too? I know you guys are desperate for them, but do you want them only to power a chopper? Are you sure you don't want to use them to infect the world with M.T.N.?" Van questioned sardonically.

"What are you talking about?" Folken snarled.

"I've been thinking about this and I don't get it. If all you wanted to do was power a helicopter, why keep the reason a secret from me? Why not just show up, tell me what Dad was up to in his lab and ask me for the energists? Or even stranger, why send Hitomi to steal the energists all those years ago?"

"Dad wasn't selling. It wasn't my idea to send Hitomi to steal that stuff."

"Then why not just ask me for them now that he's gone."

Folken bent his head and lowered his gun.

Van waited and then finally answered his own question. "Because it was your fault that Mom got infected and you thought Dad told me. Were you fighting over the energists with him and broke one on her?"

Folken didn't answer.

"Drop the gun and get out of the hole," Van ordered.

Folken dropped the gun and at the moment the piece hit the floor, Dryden whacked him over the head with a steel rod. Folken fell to the floor like a wash basket full of dirty clothes, skidding his face on the cement.

"I sent a text message to the police. They're on their way," Dryden said.

Van put down his gun and helped Hitomi climb out of the hole. She threw her arms around him. "Thanks so much for coming."

"I made it to town this morning, found the truck and drove out after you and Dryden. Maybe now we can arrange a few things to suit us without worrying about the crazies from your past … and mine."

"That would be good," Hitomi sighed.

"And you'll marry me?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

They were kissing when Dryden called up, "Can you two stop macking and help me get these things out of here?"

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing. I plan for one more chapter after this one, so next week - I will release the final chapter for 'Rose Red: Model 85001'. I will also start re-releasing 'Dragon's Moon' under the title 'Mark of the Dragon' on fictionpress. A few weeks ago I sent everyone to make fictionpress accounts and sign up for my alerts. Quite a few people did. Thank you for that. Everybody else - and you know who you are - get to it. I promise - I worked so hard on this and it is truly WICKED. You don't want to miss it. Love is all around the world. Look forward to much gushiness in the world of 'Rose Red' next week. It's a romance novel so gotta love the gush. LOVE!_


	22. Chapter 22

**Rose Red: Model 85001**

**Chapter 22**

Two weeks later, Van came to the jail to have a word with his brother. Van sat at a little desk that had nothing on it but a monitor and a camera pointed at his face. After a couple of minutes Folken's face came up on the monitor.

Folken's hair looked less slick and his face was horribly lined compared to the teenager Van remembered. His prison uniform was a grey wife-beater with blue jeans. The only thing that made it look less like what Van wore when he played grease monkey was the bracelet around his brother's wrist. Van did a double take when he saw Folken casually throw his hand on the table in front of him. It looked so much like Hitomi's, except that it wasn't pink.

"How goes it?" Folken asked, grimly reefing on his cigarette.

"Like you care," Van snorted. "It's okay if you don't. How's prison?"

Folken picked something out of his eye. "You might be surprised to hear it, but it's a Hell of a lot better than working for Allen."

"No. I believe that," Van readily agreed. A moment passed and Folken didn't elaborate, so Van asked him, "Does that mean that you meant to get caught?"

Folken shrugged his bare shoulders. "I dunno. I'm tired."

"What do they think the sentence will be?"

"I don't know that either. I've seen the list of charges. It's not that bad. I notice you didn't report any of my crimes towards Hitomi. No charges for wiping her memory. Care to explain that?"

Van rolled his eyes slowly and thought. "Of course I still can report it."

"Really?" Folken narrowed his eyes and sucked on the end of his cigarette. "Why don't you?"

"I want to ask you something first. Was I right about that box breaking?"

Van felt like he had to wait forever before Folken finally said something. "Sort of," he said dreadfully. "A box did fall at her feet during a fight, but I didn't know that it had broken. Dad told me afterwards that he found a crack it in, and then he told me when she got diagnosed." Van could tell without him saying it. He hated himself.

Van couldn't find the words to say that what happened didn't matter anymore. He felt like it did matter. The whole incident sounded so senseless and careless, but Folken probably couldn't be charged for it since it was an accident. Van swallowed whatever disgust welled up in his throat and said, "Thanks for not letting Allen murder Hitomi. I owe you one. Do you know if he's going to be charged for that?"

"I have no clue, but Van, don't be surprised if he somehow manages to get off scot-free. Marlene and her family might even help him."

"Those little…" He left that thought unanswered and took a deep breath. "I don't understand royalty."

"You don't have to."

A couple more minutes passed in unequaled silence. Van was quite uncomfortable, but Folken was even more so. Van tried to fill it with talking about what had happened to him since their standoff.

"I haven't been able to go home since we handed you over to the police. The house and hanger have been sealed off for M.T.N. testing. So far no one has been diagnosed, but we had to trace every single person who stayed there overnight this summer and have them tested. I don't know if my business will ever rise again, we've had so much press. I've been thinking that it might be time to think of a new career, but I can't think of anything other than piloting a chopper. It's all I know how to do."

Folken gave him a look. He didn't want to hear about what Van planned to do with the rest of his life. Folken's future was like a ripcord behind him.

Van tried to fix it by talking about something else. "And it turns out that all the cows in our neighborhood have M.T.N. They just have high enough doses of Ql in their system to keep the virus in check. It's pretty amazing. Once they started testing the animals more seriously, they found out the disease can only spread to a human through the circulatory system – not through spit. Hitomi helped a sick cow on the road that had a cut on its leg. Apparently, she cleaned her hand properly, because she didn't get it. Lucky girl, huh? Marlene got it from eating raw steaks."

After it seemed that the older brother had taken all that he could take, he smiled wanly and said, "I know all this. Are you done talking?"

Van shook his head.

"Anything you want to say, you'd better say it now."

"Why?"

"Because, after today, I never want to see your face again. You're so chipper. It makes me sick. Are you done?"

Van nodded, but he desperately wanted to tell his brother one last thing. Folken got up from his chair and the moment was slipping, and at the last moment, Van figured out what he wanted to say. "I'll forgive you."

"You'll forgive me?" Folken snorted.

"Yeah. Some day."

"Great," Folken said sarcastically over his shoulder, but just at the last moment, Van could have sworn he saw Folken wipe something out of his eye.

* * *

Hitomi laid on a bed in a hotel room. She and Van had been staying in a hotel since the police came in and took over the bed and breakfast. They had separate rooms, and nothing to do all day, but hang out with each other. Right now, she was waiting for him to get back. Where he went, she didn't know, but she had a feeling of great anticipation. He had something planned. As far as she knew, he'd already finished tying up all the loose ends he could manage.

Dryden was in charge of the M.T.N. research and even though he hardly looked through a microscope, he was enjoying the whole thing immensely. Hitomi got a message from him saying that his contract with Millerna had been replaced with one far more lenient. In short, no more electric shocks – twenty times more money. Apparently, that girl hired ten private detectives to help her solve her sister's case and the only one who came through was Dryden. The rest of them were now up for sale at Sleeping Beauty Inc. But, good news for M.T.N. sufferers. Now the scientists only needed to figure out how much Ql to inject into a person's blood stream and BOOM – the disease would be stopped in its tracks. There was no helping the pee colored saliva though – bummer.

Thinking about all that brought Hitomi's brain to the subject of Allen. No one had to tell her what was going on. She didn't need inside information. It was all on T.V. and a couple weeks hanging out in a hotel room allowed for plenty of unbridled celebrity gossip. Once Marlene found out that Allen was not responsible for her M.T.N. infection – she took him back – forgave him everything – wrote him back into her will – and helped him cover his past indiscretions so that he only had to pay fines for his crimes. They were even saying that the incident when he pushed Hitomi off a cliff was an 'accident'. Bastards! Hitomi's righteous indignation burned like Hell fire, but she couldn't do anything about it, so she turned off the T.V.

Two minutes later, Van's swift knock came at the door and shortly after, his body came in the room.

Hitomi kissed him instead of saying hello and made room for him on the bed.

He touched her bare wrist. "We're going to have to do something about that."

"Why?" Hitomi balked. "I'm not going to run away and things are much more comfortable with it off."

"I know, but according to enslavement regulations, you have to wear a wristband to verify your identity, owner, and location. I don't make up the rules. Since we're in the city anyway, let's go get it fixed."

Hitomi got up off the bed and put on her slip-on shoes.

"Are we going like that?" Van asked, looking her over.

"Is there something wrong with the way I look? This is how I always look. I thought you liked me just the way I am."

"I do. It's just that where we're going, you might want to dress up just a little bit."

Hitomi glared at him evilly.

Van laughed. "It's not for me. I'm thinking only of you."

Actually, Hitomi had been on the verge of complying before he laughed. Now she wasn't going to no matter what he said. "I thought you still thought I was pretty with paint smeared across my cheek?"

"You're especially pretty with paint smeared across your cheek," he said, right before he laid a peck on her cheek. "And you look pretty with paint on your nose." He planted a kiss on her nose. "And on your forehead." He kissed her there too. "And on your neck."

She pushed him off. "That tickles!"

He fought her and pulled her into a hug. "Okay, you can come how you are, but really, you might be mad at me later for not insisting."

"No. I don't want to go back to Sleeping Beauty Inc. lacquered up like a whore. I want to go looking like a work horse. What do you think?" she asked brandishing her blue jeans and grey T-shirt.

Van did a double take. "You know, that's almost exactly what Folken's prison uniform looks like."

"What?" Hitomi started. He could say anything – except that.

"I'm not joking. He was wearing a wife-beater and his jeans weren't capris, but really – that's what he was wearing."

"Then I gotta change."

Van caught her hand. "Actually, maybe it's better that you don't. I'll take you shopping afterwards and let you buy anything you want."

"Anything? Are you crazy? Where would we get the money? Are you planning to take me for a shopping spree on credit?"

"No. I recently received a refund."

"How much?"

"Plenty. Enough to take you shopping. Enough to finish the tower. Enough to redo my room. Even enough to add another wing onto the house if you want. So, how about it?" he asked, leading her out of the room.

Hitomi went with him. Was he always this nice?

They held hands as they went out of the hotel and got into a taxi. Once inside, Van said, "The courthouse please."

The driver changed lanes and got into the flow of traffic.

"The courthouse? I thought we were going to Sleeping Beauty Inc.?"

"Nah. They terminated their contract with me to get Allen off their back, but that doesn't mean that you're a free women. Well, actually, I guess it does. It means you were a free woman – for me."

"So, that's where you got the money. They refunded the money you paid for me?"

Van nodded. "Gallant of them, wasn't it? A little inconsiderate of them though, since we can't go back to them about your arm band."

"Whatever. What's so special about the courthouse that I had to dress up? I'm sure that place is even less dressy than Sleeping Beauty Inc."

Van shrugged his shoulders. "Don't be so sure."

The taxi let them off out front and Hitomi and Van walked in the mirror faced front doors. They came onto the polished marble floor, Hitomi took one look around and clutched Van's arm. The place was vibrating with the sounds of high heels on stone. It wasn't just female lawyers crossing the lobby, but brides; their trains billowing like there was wind. There were men too – scads of them – and they were all in suits or tuxedos.

Van was wearing dark blue jeans and a sweater. He looked better than her. She felt like a gooseberry in a berry patch full of blackberries.

But Van didn't seem startled and instead crossed over to the reception desk. He said his name and mentioned the appointment he'd made.

"Yes," the woman said through the tiny holes in the glass. Then, glancing at the monitor built into the desk in front of her, she said, "You're a couple minutes late, Mr. Fanel. They're waiting for you in meeting room C. I'll send them a message to let them know that you're coming now."

"Thanks," Van said,

Together, they crossed the lobby and ducked down a quieter hallway and down about seven steps before stopping in front of meeting room C. Just before they went in, Van stopped and kissed her hand. "I love you."

Then before she could answer, he threw open the door and hauled her in so fast she almost lost her balance.

Inside, there were three men in suits sitting on one side of a boardroom table. In front of every single chair there was a monitor built into the table. Van pulled out a chair for her and let her sit down.

"Good to see you again, Mr. Fanel," the man in the middle said, rising to shake Van's hand. Then he turned to Hitomi and shook hers too. "I'm Amano Billington. This is Graham Yukari, and this is Miguel Frost. We're very pleased with your decision, Mr. Fanel. An occasion like this doesn't happen every day."

"Purchased women don't get their bracelets replaced every day?" Hitomi asked – completely confused.

Amano looked at Van. It seemed he was also perplexed.

Van shrugged his shoulders and sat down with a smile.

"I'm afraid there has been some mistake. We're not here to replace your arm band, Miss Kanzaki. Mr. Fanel has signed the approval forms to have you released. You're now a free woman."

Hitomi stared at Van. He set her free? Hitomi's brain didn't even know how to compute that. "What does this mean?" she asked, looking directly into Van's eyes and forgetting there were other people in the room.

"It means that I want you to marry me, but I don't want you to be a prisoner. You can decide. If what you really want is to leave and try out life on your own again, I'll give you the money to start again. But … I still want you to marry me. Will you?"

Hitomi had already been through this in her own head. She knew what she wanted. "Of course I'll marry you."

"Wonderful!" Amano said on the other side of the table. "We have those forms ready too. If you'll just sign these forms first, Miss Kanzaki, we can bring up the marriage certificate ones right away."

Hitomi didn't even realize she was holding Van's forearms so tightly within her hands that she was putting lines in his sweater. "Okay," she said as she let go of him. "I just need to sign these forms." She took the pen within her sweaty fingertips and wrote her name in a neat diagonal line across the screen.

"Mr. Fanel has already signed those, so we can move right onto the marriage certificate. Do you have vows prepared?"

Hitomi stared. "Uh, I didn't know I was getting married today, so I don't have any."

"I do," Van said. Hitomi expected him to pull a piece of paper out of his pocket or have Amano read them out for Van to repeat, but Van didn't do either of those things. Instead, he looked straight into her eyes and said without reservation. "I swear that I'll do everything in my power to make you happy. I'll listen to you and protect you and care for you. And if you ever contract M.T.N. I'll hold your hand in the hospital and get it too. You'll be the only one for me. I'll love you forever."

Hitomi had to squeak to stop her lip from shriveling up. "I don't have anything ready."

Van kissed her on the temple. He whispered. "It's okay. The standard one will do. I have to repeat the standard one anyway."

Hitomi nodded. "Okay."

Hitomi's vow was told to her out loud by Amano and she repeated it as follows. "I, Hitomi, take you, Van, to be my lawfully wedded husband, my constant friend, my faithful partner, and my love from this day forward."

Van said his. "I, Van, take you, Hitomi, to be my lawfully wedded wife, my constant friend, my faithful partner, and my love from this day forward."

Some other things were said as Hitomi crushed her hands into Van's in her lap, but the end of the talking came with, "You may now kiss the bride."

Van drew Hitomi into his arms and kissed her.

* * *

Weeks later, Van was wandering around the house when the doorbell rang. He padded over in his socks and answered it.

"Package for you," Dilandau said with a grin.

"Are you delivering the mail now?" Van asked, moving aside to let Dilly in the house.

"Gotta take the work I can do, now that Celena's expecting. The money has got to come in somehow."

Van took the box Dilandau offered him and signed on the dotted line. "Congratulations. Wanna come in for some water or something?"

"Nope. Gotta get on to the next house. Later, Van."

Van chuckled and closed the door. That was one of the more miraculous developments in town … and in life in general. Celena pregnant? Sheesh.

Van opened the box and inside was another box, wrapped in pretty wedding-style wrapping paper. Who on Earth could be sending them a wedding present? Van opened the card. "To Van. May our years together be bright and … smooth. Love, Hitomi."

It was from Hitomi? What was she talking about? Smooth?

He ripped off the wrapping paper.

It was a power sander. This time it was blue.

**THE END**

* * *

_Author's Notes: That brings us to the end of Rose Red: Model 85001. Thank you to everyone who read and especially everyone who reviewed. You brighten my day and make me feel important. Now, listen up everyone. Mark of the Dragon is now available on fictionpress. (dot com). I put it in the romance section so click on romance and then scroll down until you find it. And if you go - PLEASE REVIEW. For the love of all that's holy - REVIEW. Fictionpress is much harder to get review at than here, but I don't know it I'll ever be coming back to write Escaflowne fanfiction again. So, if you want to continue following me - you'll have to go there. Loads of Love, Sapphirefly. See you there! P.S. my name is Sapphirefly there too._


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